Yesterday evening, when I left for Port Klang, I decided that today I would let Ivan have some fun in the water after seeing someone having so much fun at Port Dickson. The new pool was a gift for Ivan’s first birthday from Aunty Jenny a few months agoAfter his mid-morning nap and lunch, I went looking around for the pump which I have seen mum using to pump the inflatable bed with. After a fruitless search, it was nowhere to be found. Even mum and the maids do not recall where they have put it.Aigh… what to do but leave this pregnant woman to blow the pool up with her own breath! Huff… puff… huff… puff… Actually, it was quite easy and fast to inflate.My eager son could not contain himself as I set the pool out in the porch and climbed in while water was still being poured in. As soon as he is inside, he started splashing the water around. After a while, my sister Haslina joined in the fun.He loved the hose, but sucks in his stomach when water is sprayed onto him.He even tried to drink the pool water with great big slurping sounds. I guess we have been teaching him too much of drinking soup with such gusto!Finally, after roughly about an hour of fun, I decided it was enough soaking for one day. We had to peel him off from the pool and then bring him inside for a real bath. He put up a real fight!

18 years ago…
My mother is Chinese but she has converted to Muslim after getting married to my stepfather when I was about 10 years old. At that time, due to influences from my maternal grandmother and aunties, I did not accept this man well. I even went as far as to tell my brother not to call this man “papa” as instructed by our mother, or he would get it from me.

From this union, a new baby sister was born. I remember my mother telling me that the doctor told her she was pregnant with a baby boy and when baby came out, she is a girl! I guess up till today, our papa is still wondering if the doctor played a joke on him.

10 years ago…
However, as time passed, I find that this man is good for my mother. We were seldom with her as we lived with our grandmother when we were still studying. And as for my father, he died when I was 2 years old and my brother 12 days old. I think 8 years of mourning a beloved’s death is more than enough. I understand that she needed someone to take care of her and to share her life with her, as she was still very young at that time.

Now…
I am thankful that papa came into my mother’s life. She is more fulfilled. Rather than sit at home with her in-laws and work in a dead-end job, she has her own businesses and her own home. In addition to my little sister, my parents have also adopted another 2 children, a boy and a girl… making us a huge family of 7.

For Hari Raya this year, I wish for happiness for my mother and her loved ones. Mum… maaf zahir dan batin.

This morning I went for my monthly check up with my gynecologist. As of today, at 29 weeks of pregnancy, I weigh 66.4 kilogrammes. Walao! At this rate, I might end up putting on the same 20kgs I put on during my last pregnancy with Ivan.

Then when Doctor was doing the ultrasound, he told me baby has turned and is now nicely heading downwards while his little legs are nicely kicking me everyday in the ribs. At another angle, we saw his little face with the features fully formed… it was at this moment that baby gave us a big, wide yawn. The Doctor was going like, “And this is the face… the mouth… oh, oh and aahhhhhh-hhhummm!” Well, I must say that this is a first for me, as I do not usually see much movement with the ultrasound (I can feel him, but I cannot decipher the ultrasound well).

The tiniest of yawn has me feeling awe at the wonders of science and new life this whole day *grinning from ear to ear*.

Today while I was at work, mum picked Ivan up from my house. She has been asking for him to go to her house as she beh tahan liao (Hokkien: cannot stand anymore). All of them miss the little monkey boy and his ever-lasting energy. So, after work I went to mum’s house.

After lazing around for a bit, this lazy mummy fell asleep for the whole afternoon from 4.30pm till 7.00pm, waking up just in time to buka puasa (Malay: break fast)! Mum was there to take care of the little bugger, so I might as well steal some shut-eye. Now you may ask why do we need to buka puasa? Well, that a whole other blog altogether…

This evening, as we were preparing to go home, Ivan stuck fast to the steering wheel (“the wheel”) as usual. As noted here, he is crazy over the wheel every time we go somewhere. He would not let go and wanted to drive and drive and drive. So, being the indulgent mummy, I let him drive for as long as I can stand to sit inside the car without having it moving. Then when I felt that it was time to start our journey, I pried him away from the wheel and passed him to the backseat where Sutini is waiting.

The boy knows how to fake his cries nowadays… his cries will start off really fake, then progress to crocodile tears and finally to full on bawling. This time, however, he did not stop crying after a while. He cried and cried like the world is going to end at that very moment… and then, uuwekkkk! He vomited from all the exertion. Walao! Out came the little bit of milk; out came the porridge from dinner and all the rest of the things that he ate. At this moment, I felt so bad letting him cry. I had wanted to ignore his cries so that we would not have to stay at the parking bay for the rest of the night, or at least till he falls asleep.

Well, we quickly cleaned him up and I put on his clothes. After the fiasco, I let him come to the driver’s seat again, but this time he has no mood already. He only clung to me like a koala bear and went to sleep, softly sobbing away.

Phew! My poor baby, mummy feels so bad you had to vomit… you were so tired and mang chang (Cantonese: grouchy), mummy should not have left you to cry.

Hubby is fattening me the baby up for the kill his birth. For the past few weeks (or even months), he has been cooking dinner for the family (SIL#2, himself and me).

During my last pregnancy, we ate out a lot. Once every fortnight there will be piu wui (Cantonese: ballot) sessions at either one of his friends’ restaurants. There will be kow tai kuai (Cantonese: nine course dinner), the menu usually includes sharks fin soup and abalone. These meals come in sets; therefore we do not have to order. This time around, however, he did not join up for the piu wui sessions, so we seldom go out for dinner. To make up for the lack of “good food”, he has decided that he would cook dinner every few nights in a week. This way, we do not have to think of where we should eat, what we should eat and argue over who drives there.

Tonight, our featured dish is ham yue zhing chue yuk (Cantonese: steamed pork with salted fish). Needless to say, I have little idea how he prepared that thing, as I cannot cook I’m not very good at cooking. When I do cook, I need someone to do it for me to see first before attempting it on my own or I will need a recipe and follow it through. Aigh! I have been asking him for exact measurements for his ingredients but he just shrugs, he never knows how much of everything he puts into the dishes. But never mind lah, next time I will try to include a recipe together with his dish. For now, just sit back and enjoy the food hor.

I am heartsick.

I am heartsick due to the fact that Ivan needs the maid to be able to sleep.

At 9.30pm, I dumped Ivan into his cradle without any protest from him. This usually indicates that he is already tired and is willing to sleep. As soon as Sutini comes into the hall from the kitchen with the milk and switches off the light, Ivan kept bucking and wanted to get down from the cradle. I then brought him into the room with me and hoped that he would sleep after rolling around for a bit. How wrong I was!

He cried and cried like there’s no tomorrow, his fingers keep pointing outside and nodding his head, indicating that he wanted to go out. I said, “You want to go outside?” Nod nod. “You don’t want mummy?” Silent. “You don’t want to sleep in the room?” Silent. “Afterwards only sleep in the room?” Nod nod. At this point, he kept quiet because I have promised to bring him out. As soon as he is out of the room and into the hall (which is also dark, with minimal light from the street), he starts crying like so charm (Cantonese: poor thing). It was obvious that he wanted Sutini and was showing her how mummy had kidnapped him into the room. At that point, I was really heartbroken. I am not too sure if mere tiredness or a matter of preference that caused his actions. However, I know that Sutini often bend to his whims and fancy, she pampers him more than I do.

Well, this went on (in and out of the room) for a few rounds, when finally, Sutini was the one who put him into the cradle. This time, there was no resistance mainly because he was quite worn out already (around 10.30pm at this point) and I guess he got who he wanted to dump him into the darn cradle. Anyway, I went over and shook the cradle; he was all right with it, as he didn’t whom it was. But then I wanted to test his reaction so I talked to him… then guess what happened? He cried and wanted to get out of the cradle again. Walao!

So out he comes again, this time Sutini already left the hall and went into the kitchen. However, he didn’t protest much and slowly quieted down to a whimper. Finally, he slept facing me, on my tummy… more likely due to total tiredness rather than preference for me putting him to sleep. Aigh! So sad.

Now, I want to know what went wrong with my child this night? He is very seldom this way and the most worrisome thing is that he was all right in the room if the maid is there too, and when she went out as ordered by me, he cried. *Sigh!*

Ivan has a fascination with all things on wheels.

The Bike
Whenever he sees a bike, he goes “Broom… broom!” Bikes parked anywhere will not escape his sight and he will request to be put on it. He has no preference… Harley-Davidsons, super bikes, touring bikes, scooters or even the kap chais are fine with him just as long as he gets his biking thirst quenched. His fascination with bikes goes so far that my stepfather went and bought him a bike of his own. This bike comes with rechargeable battery, which can be plugged into the wall outlet. My first thought was what a waste of money, but my mum told me it cost merely more or less RM150. Seeing how he is enjoying it so much, I guess it is money well spent.

The Car
Now, cars are no exception for this boy… I wonder if boys are born with motoring instincts. Wherever we go, he must get his turn at the steering wheel… sekejap also syok. But of course, with him, there is no such thing as sekejap. He will be seated at the driver’s seat, busy controlling the steering wheel, busy pressing on all the buttons, turning on the headlights, turning on the wiper and trying to switch the engine on or off (which luckily is still beyond him!). Luckily, these days he is better behaved. He knows when he can seat at “the” place and when he cannot.

I do hope he will not grow up to be a daredevil and go racing like so many young kids are doing these days. I know this is thinking too far ahead, but a worry is a worry.

Ow! My ribs are losing the battle with my womb, I can feel the baby going up and up and up. I keep wondering how my bones can be so flexible. Even sitting at my desk in the office is tiring, must lean back very often. Worse still if I drop a pen on the floor…

He is getting bigger and more active as the days pass, I am just afraid he is going to be bigger than Ivan (then how he come out hor…). Every movement can be felt now, hands and legs stretching for more space. But funny, this is best part I like about being pregnant. I like to feel the foetus going flutter flutter flutter, kick kick, nudge nudge…

Still, I hate sore ribs and I can’t help but start counting the days to when I can finally off load the little bugger. Count count count… 96 days to go… walao!

Saturday, 1st October 2005
8:00 am: Ivan woke up and was carried out to the cradle in the hall for his milk. I crawled back into bed for more ZzzZzzz.

11:30 am: Woke up with sun shining on my butt (in other words: LATE). Heard Ivan babbling and banging away in the hall. Went out to the hall, Ivan was just finishing his porridge. Went online, the boy came over and happily bang away at my notebook.

1.45 pm: Sneaked out of house to attend “Hypno-Birthing Preview”, jointly organised by MyJoyBirth and Life Inspirations. Met Wai Han (she is one of the organiser) & Jefferene there for the first time (shy-lah, never spoke to Jefferene).

4:00 pm: Left the preview and reached home to find Ivan napping. The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, Ivan refused to go to sleep until 11pm (again?!!).

Sunday, 2nd October 2005
8:30 am: Woke up and see Ivan stirring from his sleep. Was greeted by a warm baby smile (made my day!) and then “Neh! Neh!” (Ivan pointed to the mobile phone, wanted to pay with it). Wrestle with him for a while and then carried him out for his morning milk… and I crawled back into bed.

9:00 am: Jazzmint called, and we agreed to meet at 10am to go to the Hytex Warehouse Sale (HWS). Moved my butt, took a shower and then played with Ivan.

9:55 am: Sneaked out from my own home (toddlers have very watchful eyes).

10:05 am: Met Jazzmint (for the first time!) and Evelyn (old classmate) at McDonald’s. Had some breakfast before leaving for the HWS. SIL #1 called up and insisted that I bring Ivan and her along. So, Ivan followed us to the HWS.

10:30 am: Left McDonald’s for HWS, reached there and see so many people. Phew! We dived right in with the crowd, it was so hot and stuffy that I wanted to just give up and go home. Luckily Ivan is in the car with SIL #1, so I managed to get 15 pieces of clothing for RM19. What a bargain! I think more or less we were there for about 2 hours and then left for lunch.

1:30 pm: Dropped Jazzmint and Evelyn off at McDonald’s with Ivan dropping off to sleep in my arms. When I reached home, he was totally knocked out and drank his milk while sleeping. I also found that Sutini had already cleaned up the house and packed everything as I told her to do, in preparation for the fogging. So the house actually looked deserted, like we are ready to shift to a new place. Very scared the house will be all oily after MPPJ is done with the fogging.

2:30 pm: Left home with Ivan and Sutini to bring them to mum’s house for the week due to fogging (and mum misses Ivan). Ivan slept throughout the car ride and woke up as soon as I reached mum’s house at 3:00pm.

5:45 pm: Left home to attend wedding dinner, got posted to the counter to collect angpows and record arrivals. Miss Ivan already…

9:00 pm: Dinner commenced and ended at 11 something. So tired, slept like a log. (However, I woke up this morning feeling more tired than ever… could it be because Ivan’s not around for me to smell smell? LOL)