My stomach is extremely huge, I have slightly more than 3 more weeks to go.

Resting is no longer possible. Laying on the right or left no longer feel comfortable. Sitting hurt my back. Standing tires my calves. I wake up middle of the night with eyes wide opened, trying hard to go back to sleep.

Baby is still active although with not much space for movement, we can see the tremors she creates when she moves, skin stretching before our eyes.

I’d sorted out all the necessities for the arrival of the baby :
1) ordered my confinement herbs and herbal wine from my Chinese Dr.
2) confirmed with friend’s mum who will be supplying me with home brewed rice wine.
3) signed up with Stemlife for baby’s cord blood banking
4) bought a few new pieces of clothing to welcome baby’s arrival (the rest will be wearing her jie-jie’s clothes)
5) checked that we have enough bottles/milk storage bag to store breast milk if I need to pump out
6) bought new Dr Brown bottles for her during occasions where I cannot breast feed directly
7) rearranged the furniture in the room to accommodate the cot (Daddy has yet to raise the cot and fixed its railing)

And yesterday, I’d even packed my bag for my hospital stay. So now, I’m just waiting for baby’s arrival.

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On the other hand, Zara has been bugging us to bring her to the beach, to Morib, to Penang, to Cowboy Town. We had to explain to her I’m too big to be traveling now, and we have to wait for Mei-Mei’s (Chinese : Little sister) arrival before we can travel again.

So over the weekend, besides bringing her to the mall, we let her play in her wading pool. She was very very happy, since her last dip was actually in Phuket, quite a while back.

Some of her conversation with us that tickled me.

Me : Do you want to watch Chinese jiejie show (referring to ??? musical VCD).
Zara : Want. Chinese jiejie got hair clips. Zara’s hair clip upstairs in the box (referring to the box I kept all her hair clips).
Me : Yeah. But Zara doesn’t like mummy put hair clip for Zara. You always want to take it out.
Zara : Because it’s painful. Mummy put hairclip is painful. Take out then must comb comb the hair.

Daddy : Tomorrow is Sunday where does Zara want to go?
Zara : ……
Daddy : Maybe we can go to Lake Gardens. Can go to the dinosaur playground, feed the monkeys. How about that?
Zara : Sounds like fun!

Zara : Don’t want kakak KC.
Me : Why?
Zara : Because kakak is so uh-gree (ugly).
Me : Oh, that’s not nice. If you have good manners you won’t say something like that.
Zara : *spent a few seconds thinking* Because kakak is not family. Mummy, Daddy and Zara is family.
Me : But you let kakak Tuyam jaga (Malay : Take care of) you.
Zara : Kakak Tuyam is oso (also) family. This one new kakak, not family.
Me : ….

I had a short nap while Daddy looked after her, and when I woke up, she came to me and stuck her face real near mine and asked, “Mummy, Are you feeling better now?”
..She’s really growing up…

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Btw, it has been crazy for me over the last few days. Sis’ Filipino maid has to go back to Philippines because of family emergency, and sis needs her Indonesian maid back. So no one to baby sit Zara (although I could still send her to my sis’ place, Zara just refused to let the Indonesian maids care for her) and do the housework. Guess who we enrolled for help? MIL for baby-sitting Zara.

MIL has been staying with us since Sunday. Zara refused MIL as well, so she has been climbing up the stairs to the study to come to me when MIL is not looking. And I have to do the diaper changing, milk feeding, VCD/DVD playing. She won’t allow MIL to touch her, and MIL is too afraid to turn on the VCD/DVD player. Major disruption for me at work.

Another 14days before my maid returns. Hope I’ll still be sane by then.

Psst, my future in-law, do you want to help baby sit Zara? I’ll give you discount on the dowry.

Almost a week has passed since our maid has gone home.

We’re using my sis’ Indonesian maid, KC. Our initial plan was to have her take care of Zara and at the same time help out with household chores. However, Zara totally didn’t want KC to handle her. I think the reason is KC didn’t speak English, and Zara has no way of communicating with her (Tuyam is able to communicate with Zara with her limited broken English). She doesn’t even want KC to sit near her while she watched her TV shows.

She only wanted my sis’ Filipino maid, Elizabeth. Kept sticking to her and every time KC goes near her, she’ll be shouting, “Don’t want kakak. Aunty Aunty (calling for Elizabeth), come!”

There’s lots of interruptions for me while working at my sis’ place. Sometimes when Elizabeth needs to cook or clean the house, Zara will be coming to me, asking me to play with her; Or running to me for help when KC tries to give her some water or play with her.

Oh boy, tough for me.

Why is it always the wife who has to endure this while the husband continues with his usual routine when the domestic helper is not around? I’ll wait to see if Daddy is going to help out during the weekend, or he’s still going to enjoy his weekend like he usually does, in front of his newspapers, ‘making love’ to his amplifier, and working on his hobby.

World War Three will erupt if he thinks I’ll have to do all the work, while it’s status quo for him!

We took an early flight to Phuket on Thursday (5/10). A Phuket colleague of mine arranged for a taxi to pick us up from the airport for a fraction of the price that the hotel would charge if we booked the car from the hotel.

Being nosy on the plane. Enjoying a cool towel and welcome drink in the resort

The Hotel
Twinpalms Resort is a small boutique hotel located in the quiet beach of Surin. Just like its website, the place is beautiful. We got really good rates from the internet after doing some shopping around, and I don’t believe you can get anything near that kind of accommodation (and service) in M’sia for that price.

We stayed in the deluxe room on the ground floor the first night. Zara liked the room very much, it has a roomy balcony, and a few steps away from the pool. Since there was no bath tub provided, I asked for an anti-slip mat for Zara. I was delighted that the hotel instead loaned us a Winnie The Poo bath tub, together with a set of complimentary baby toileteries (which included bottle and nappy wash). Now, how many hotels would give you some thing like this? So far in my experience, none (not even our famous Pangkor Laut or Tanjung Jara resort).

Horsing around in the room, and the resort

For the rest of the 3 nights, we upgraded ourselves to a Grand deluxe room (err, because the cheaper rooms were no longer available in the bargain website I booked the room from) located on the 1st floor. The room was bigger, and it came with a bathtub. Zara of course enjoyed the new bath tub very much.

Big tub fun, and exploring the resort

The Pool
Twinpalms has 1600sqm of water surface, the pool runs across the middle of the premise, with rooms surrounding it. Some of the rooms even have direct access to the pool (i.e. the room is directly connected to the pool).

Zara went swimming every day, spending about 1 to 2hrs at the pool. There’s no baby pool available, but they have shallow slope leading to deeper end, so she spent most of her time walking up and down the slopes.

We don’t have to hold on to her, she paddled about herself, even when her feet could not touch the ground. We just have to be nearby to assist her if she has her head accidentally dipped in the water.

The Pampering
This is more of relaxing trip for me. Daddy has been great, taking care of Zara most of the time since he knows I’m too big to be running after or carrying Zara.

I also got a surprise gift from my best friend in New York. She bought us a spa voucher in Twinpalms without me knowing, and I was very surprise to see this in our room when we checked in. Our anniversary isn’t until end next month, but this is such a nice gesture from her.

On top of this, the booking website also gave us a 2hrs spa treatment voucher for booking more than 3 nights stay.

Daddy is not a spa person, so I got all the pampering in the spa, making use of these vouchers, while Daddy looked after Zara in the room. I had such a good back and shoulder rub, oh, it was orgasmic! (Thanks Ping!)

And then, what’s more blissful than lounging at the poolside sala, sipping herbal tea, while watching the kid and Daddy play in the pool.

(Thanks Daddy, for allowing me this luxury by looking after Zara.)

Laundryamah tagged me on this, 6 random facts about me.

1) I love Zara to bits, she has given me so much joy, happiness and not to mention amusement… oh well, you all know about this already.

2) Secretly, I worry I won’t be able to give the same amount of love to the baby I’m carrying. I pray every night and ask that this won’t happen, and that I’ll love them both equally.

3) I love deep fried food.. Gosh.. it’s such a sin to have Puri (Indian deep fried bread) for breakfast, then a piece of sweet potato fritter and a curry puff for tea, and then Lay’s potato chip for snack. I feel guilty eating like this, but it’s like an addiction..

4) I’m very untidy (messy table, messy wardrobe) but I’m obsessed with cleanliness.

5) I live in a house I like, in a nice neighborhood. However, I hate the distant it is away from everything (the Chinese coffee shops, the shopping malls, the good nurseries / kindergarten / schools).

6) At the peak of my health, I could run 4Km, now I can’t even walk 1Km without resting.

Not tagging anyone….

Lots of people are asking me this question.

I had a feeling I was going to have a boy from the very beginning. Because of the timing of conception (on the dot of ovulation day), and the experience I have with this pregnancy is very different from Zara’s. Not to mention seeing the baby’s hand reach out for the needle during the amnio test, an indication of a boy in the making.

With Zara, there was no morning sickness. My stomach was growing very rounded and towards the side (like a flat wok). With this baby, it is pointy, all growing towards the front.

Do I prefer a girl or a boy? I asked Zara that question as well, “Do you want mummy to have a baby girl or baby boy?” She always replies, “Baby girl.” If Zara was a boy, I would definitely hope for a girl, since she’s a girl, does it matter?

A boy would have completed the family, an ideal. A girl and a boy, what more can you ask?
Daddy would prefer a boy, he said he could share his engineering hobby with him, i.e. fixing the car, building amplifiers etc.

But deep down, I would like another girl.
I think girls are easier to care for, girls ‘listen’ more, and when they grow up, they tend to be closer to their families than boys.
From an economic standpoint, a girl would be better, because she can inherit all Zara’s and Tasha’s clothes and shoes.
My friend who has a girl first and a boy then, told me the caring of the KKJ (Chinese : male organ) is tougher. There are so many folds to clean, like below the testicles, the folds between the penis and testicles etc.

The reason why I wanted to have a second child was to let Zara have a sibling to talk to and discuss things with when we’re old and gone. How many brother and sister out there who are very close? Who can talk about anything under the sun? I just look at myself, we’re never that close to my brother, I talk to my SIL more than him; but with my sisters, we get along fine (of course there were tongue lashing, fists fighting days), we can talk about anything, our MILs, our sex lives, the latest skin care, etc.

So I was very anxious to know the sex of the baby.

And I am very happy to know that we’re going to have another girl! I can sense a wee bit of disappointment in Daddy when I told him the sex, but after a while, he said, “actually, girl is better also hor?” My reply to him is, “No matter what, don’t ask me try for a boy huh, I’m closing shop!”

Just our luck.

Incident 1
On Saturday, while on our way back from the market, at a traffic light on a slope, Daddy stopped behind a small truck loaded with long wooden poles. The truck suddenly backed towards our car; Daddy pressed on the honk, but the truck driver was obviously dreaming, the truck just continued to slide down the slope towards our car, and suddenly BANG! One of the wooden pole just cut straight into our bonnet.

Daddy was furious, he immediately overtook the truck, blocked the truck with his car and got down, making sure the truck driver did the same and checked on the damage. Daddy was pointing at the driver, then his car, we couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it’s obvious he’s very angry, an emotion he doesn’t show much in the presence of Zara (he’s more patient with Zara than me). Zara pointed to Daddy and said, “Daddy so rude”, not seeing this side of him before.

When Daddy got back into the car, he said when they talked about who’s going pay for the repair, the truck driver just said he’s just a driver for the company truck, and won’t have money to pay Daddy.

Incident 2
On Sunday, I went to have dinner at my sis’ place and after dinner I brought my dad out for coffee.

As I was driving towards the coffee place, going on a straight road, a sudden BANG! and the whole car shook and skidded a bit sideways. We got knocked by a car exiting from a junction on the left!

I immediately stopped the car, my dad, the hero, stomped out and started approaching the other car. I parked the car properly, checked the damage, unstrapped Zara from the car seat, carried her and walked towards the other car. I could hear my Dad shouting at the young driver, “You just got your license and you are still on probation and you are driving like a madman?!!” He was giving the boy a lecture. The boy was apologising profusely. I told him I’ll get someone to evaluate the damage and then bill him. There’s a bad dent on the left back passenger side just after the door, all the way to the bumper.

We exchanged phone numbers, and after more apologies from him, we left. I told my dad why he was so angry, and scolded the boy so harshly. What if he was some road bully and beat him up? He’s way too gangho. My dad.

I was shaken by the accident, but then I counted my blessings. If I’d drove any slower, or if the driver drove any faster, he could have knocked right into the back passenger car door, where Zara was seated. I don’t want to imagine that. And I was driving Daddy’s car, and not my car, which has cheaper spare parts, more common colour, and he already has a dent from the day before, so if he needed to knock the dent back, he can get them done all together. Lucky in a way?

Every night before I go to bed, I always asked for patience and fairness so that I will be able to give this to Zara (and the coming baby) in her (their) upbringing.

I realised when I’m tired, not feeling well and if I have some misunderstanding with Daddy, my mood is sour, and I will then be a bit harsh on Zara.

When she wakes up in the middle of the night because of a bad dream, and on days when I’m not rested, I would actually grumble loudly to her while patting her, “Please la, go back to sleep la. Mummy also needs rest la.” (I should have just hug and calm her, and pat her back to sleep)

When she’s demands for TV even after she’s just watched a whole Barney show, if my mood is sour, I would tell her a firm “NO! NO MORE TV!” No explanation given. (I should have suggested to her other things to do instead of watching TV)

When she runs around naked after a bath, trying to be playful instead of letting me dress her up, and if I’m in one of those moods, I’ll yank her towards me, and almost shouting, “Don’t be naughty yeah! Quickly, let mummy dress you up!” (I should have explained to her that she should get dress quickly, or she’ll catch a cold).

Get the drift..?

Yesterday, I wasn’t feeling quite well, because I have a bit of abdominal pain (oh well, maybe this was just my excuse). I was giving Zara a tough time.
“Stop splashing water on mummy yeah. Or else you stop swimming!” when she was splashing water in her playful way in her wading pool.
“Hurry up la, get out of the bath now!” during her evening bath, because she wanted to play longer in her bath.
“You tore your book huh? Ok, mummy throw away the book then since you don’t know how to sayang (Malay: Take care) your book.” when she accidentally tore a page out from her book.
“Please hold your cup properly la. Why you keep spilling?” when she drank from her sippy cup and spilled some out.
etc.

In the night, when it was time for her to brush her teeth and get ready for bed. She was making a fuss because I got Tuyam to help her instead of helping her myself.
“Aiya, mummy not feeling well la. Let Kakak do for you.” I grumbled impatiently.
She gave me a reply which woke me up instantly. She said, “Mummy so rude!”. When I asked her what she said. She didn’t dare repeat that, but she said instead, “Don’t want Mummy scold Zara.”.

It quickly brought me to my senses. Why am I being so harsh on her the whole day, or on days when I’m in my sour mood? She’s just being herself like any other days. I felt so guilty.

So I have my dark side too, but I really hope such occasions are rare, and I’m still learning to be patient, if not constantly at least most of the time.

Leaving for Singapore in a while for a meeting tomorrow. Told Zara about it.

Me : Mummy going to Hong Kong (just so she doesn’t get confused I didn’t say Singapore) to work work again, can or not?
Zara : *look a bit upset* Zara no cry. Mummy go work work, Zara sleep with Daddy.
Me : Good girl. Zara be brave and don’t cry ok? Mummy come back very fast one.
Zara : Mummy come back very fast. Zara no cry.

Maybe she thought I’ll be buying her tons of clothes or toys again. Yikes!

For the first few days in Hong Kong, I tried to shop for clothes and shoes for Zara, but I couldn’t find anything. They were either the upmarket brands where every thing are ridiculously priced (even after discount); or they are cheap low quality stuff sold in the markets. The more popular local brands like Giordano or Bossini only have clothes for kids 3yrs and above. I was getting disappointed with the shopping.

On the last day, however, I saw there was a sale on in Zara! I love the kids clothes from Zara, they are ideal for Zara because she is tall and lean; most of the other international brands like Osh Kosh and Mother Care do not fit her well because they are made for bigger size kids.

Here are the loot I got for her, most of them are from Zara (which became more affordable after discount).
Baby doll clothes are very popular now in Hong Kong. People with flat tummy wearing ‘maternity’ looking blouse. I got myself one which will cater for the growing tummy. I also got myself a pair of sandals and a bag.

And what is going to Hong Kong without buying the extremely good quality dried sea produce/??. I got the viagra prawns mentioned in Domestic Rat’s blog too, but they are from Southern China and not Sarawak. I bought double of everything below, because I have to give them to MIL as gifts for keeping an eye on Zara and maid during the time I was away.

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Zara modeling her new clothes from Zara.

I got her a watering can from Hong Kong too, she really loves it, and immediately wanted to help Kakak water the plants.

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I wonder when I’ll go to Hong Kong again (the last time I went was 20yrs ago with my mum and sis), it’s not a holiday destination I have in mind. So I’ll wait for my next business trip.

What I like about Hong Kong
~ The transport system, cabs, busses, MTR are very good and extensive.
~ The porridge in Hong Kong is superb, so creamy and delicious. Anybody knows how to make porridge like the ones you find in Hong Kong?
~ The roast goose is to die for.

What I don’t like about Hong Kong
~ People smoke indoor, in buildings, in restaurants. Blech!
~ Food or dishes whipped out from restaurants are extremely salty for my liking.
~ Every where is so crowded, and there’s no green lungs!