My exploration in life… (diary for baby!)

It’s great fun trying to listen to the baby move in YEN’s tummy!  It goes like this - we’ll be doing reading / playing games, etc. and she’s sitting by my side, she’ll suddenly tell me the baby’s moving, I’ll put down whatever I was doing, lie her down and put my head on her tummy to listen intently for any sound.  Sometimes I fail to hear anything after some wait; other times I will hear sounds of light movement in there…  Isn’t it exciting?!  =)

It’s really wonderful and amazing how the baby is formed in the mother’s stomach in the ten months.  I’ve learnt in the Growth and Motor Development lessons the last semester that there are too many factors affecting the baby’s growth and maturation.  Starting from the parents’ age, genes, nutrition / stress the mother takes, factors affecting birth, the experience the baby gets after birth, etc. etc.  So too many factors have to be put together (and put together well!) to give us a top brain / world class athlete / famous pop star…  The thought is scary, especially for an inexperienced person who will turn parent, soon!

We’ve been thinking of names for the baby girl.  Nothing’s set at the moment; the search goes on…  And through the CNY break, we’ve taken our discussion of moving to a bigger flat a little further with EDDIE and HUIJUN.  We’ve decided that we are not moving for a raise in status - we want to upgrade for the fact the flat we will get is bigger than our current one.  So we think a HDB 5-room Executive Apartment sounds good.  The space is definitely much bigger than our current flat (130+ compared to the current 100+ sqm).  HUIJUN thinks that we can afford it, no problem.  And she told us that there are such flats available near Jurong Point.  Hmmm…  we’ll see how things go…

Remember that I wrote about this good friend who borrowed a relatively large amount from me a couple of years ago, and has yet to return the money to me?  Well, I just met him at our ex-colleague BERNARD YONG’s housewarming at BERNARD’s new condominium in Upper East Coast.  He motioned me aside the first thing he saw me to ask for my bank account number so that he can transfer the money back to me.  He explained his predicament and apologised profusely for the long delay with regards to the money.  I sure need the money - now that my income is relatively much less than what I had drawn with SAF previously (plus being married with baby her way)…  I shan’t comment too much on the situation, though.  Perhaps I will confirm my feelings when I actually get the money back a few days later.  Or perhaps that won’t be happening yet??

Is the baby kicking in YEN’s stomach??  YEN can’t tell - said the "kicks" could also be rumbling of her stomach…  It’s exciting - how do you tell the difference, really?!  Can someone who has been through childbirth advise??  =)

YEN and I had two reunion meals in a day yesterday.  That’s a first in our lives, too.  We had a late lunch at her mum’s at three-plus in the afternoon, and I had to request for a late dinner at nine-plus at home with my family.  And YEN had one meal too many involving chicken as the main dish (she had chicken rice for lunch and dinner a day before CNY eve, and both reunion-meals yesterday had chicken!)…  =P

I had received thirty-something SMSes wishing me and my family a happy CNY in this Year of the Dog.  And I’m actually very happy that quite a number of them came from friends from the SAF, both my last and previous units.  They haven’t forgotten me!  I’m so happy there, and it shows that (I hope it shows!) I haven’t been too lousy a person!

YEN and I presented our first red packets to my mum, EDDIE and HUIJUN today - still not so used to it!  We will be visiting YEN’s grandmum tomorrow, and my old colleague BERNARD for his housewarming "party" on Tuesday.  My auntie (wife of my late uncle - brother of my mum) and the family which my mum babysat for will be visiting us on the next two days too.  More red packets to give out!

It’s official - YEN went for another scan today (after our child in her womb was not co-operating the last time round) and the doctor has verified that our child is going to be born a girl.  =)  It was after the dance lesson today that I got the news from YEN, and I was so happy I told my classmates present.  ROZALI says having a girl as the first child is good as she’ll be a very responsible girl later on like his girl, DARRON says hurrah as she’ll not have to NS obligations (who’ll know if policies will change then!), LYNN asked if we’ve chosen a name for our girl…  All I hope for now is a healthy and pretty girl to be born, most importantly!  The other things (or worries) can come later!

Happy Lunar New Year!  This marks YEN and my first lunar new year as a married couple and the first time we’ll be giving out red packets!  We spent some time last night preparing them after YEN had spent a little time queuing at the POSBank in SGH to exchange new $2 notes (you know - the new plastic ones?).  YEN wanted everything to be "nice looking" - the red packets had to be perfect (without any sticky "self adheresive" stuff from other red packets), and so do the notes (they cannot have creases, and new and old $2 notes in a same red package cannot go together, etc.).  Haha; I don’t care about these minor details!  As a kid, what matters to me was not if the notes looked or smelt good; all that mattered was the amount (and muttering under my breath that so-and-so was too "kiam-siap"!

My classmate ERIC "Commando" WU has just passed his motorcycle-riding test and is looking to buy a "Phantom" as transport.  I spoke to him a bit and share with him some experiences I had as a former rider, and some things to know as a motorcycle owner.  I don’t condemn motorcycle riding - it’s still the most affordable and convenient way to get around.  The only trade-off is safety.  I think ERIC is mature enough to handle a bike.  I hope sincerely that he’ll not meet with any accident when he rides…

I guess I gave my family a surprise when I told them that I intend to move to a bigger flat (be it 5-room or Executive Condo - if I can afford it!) soon.  My explanation was that I found our current flat a little too small and the furniture is not baby-friendly.  We had bought the furniture without the child in mind (it didn’t even seem like I was going to get married soon when we move into our current 4-room one in end-98) and now that our baby will be needing space to crawl and feel around soon enough, the space and furniture seems just too wrong…  I don’t know if I can afford it, though (with the meager allowance while I’m studying) and hope to meet up with EDDIE’s mum-in-law (she is in the housing-line) to ask for her expert advice.

Time really flies when you are busy.  I barely have time to read up the endless readings I have been told to do for my modules, I’m still lost in anatomy lessons, the piles of newspapers are waiting for me to read them (current news become old news very fast!)…  I must catch up on all the readings I have not done…

“Happy birthday to me…” haha; I turn twenty eight today!  My classmates at NIE gave me a pleasant surprise when at the end of the dance lesson we had today, they had the dance instructor play the birthday song for me, singing to it and presenting me with a big birthday card!  I did not expect that!  Seems like I’m not that disliked after all; ha!  They got something wrong though – I turn twenty-eight today; not twenty-nine (I’m not THAT old, you know!).

I almost did not live to today; I had the closest shave yesterday with an accident – I was done for the day in the evening and made my way out from NTU / NIE area from the NANYANG-side exit.  I was going straight at this traffic light and the light was green in my favour.  No sign of it turning red anytime, so I went ahead to cross the junction.  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw this gold-coloured sedan car from the opposite direction intending to make a right-turn to PIE.  Anyone in the right frame of mind will think that this car will slow down and wait as I had the right of way, right?  NO!  To my horror, the car didn’t seem to care that I had already started crossing the junction and continued to make a right turn anyway!

I was shocked and I couldn’t even react to sound my horn (not to mention look to see who the driver was or remember the car’s number plate)!  The only thing I did (and thankfully. It saved me!) was to accelerate to avoid the car…  And from my side mirror, I swear the car missed hitting me by centimetres…

School-work has not been too good – at least for the anatomy part of the biomechanics lessons we are having now, I can hardly comprehend the information presented in the lectures!  I’d better do some more reading up to catch up…  Oh, the lecturer for this part of the module is Associate Professor C.KUNALAN, the former Singapore 100 metres record holder.  He is sure knowledgeable in what he is teaching, but the information presented somehow always seem kind of disorganised and I find it hard to link the pieces of information together…

YEN bought me a new mobile phone last night.  The plan is that we are going to get a pair of 3G phones so that we can see each other when we communicate, and she wanted to pay for the phones in full alone.  I had initially refused her to pay that much as it will be costing a bomb – more than $1300+ for a pair, but she was adamant in paying.  I told her that I didn’t want to burn a hole in her pocket just for a present…  we have to plan for the future, especially now that our precious unborn is on the way.  She was really unhappy that I refused her intention to pay, and in the end, reluctantly accepted my suggestion that she would only pay a huge part of the two phones.  But the STARHUB shop at JURONG POINT only had one model of the phone we wanted left in stock, and YEN insisted that I take the phone first.  My point is that I don’t want us to pay a lot of money to get each other gifts (to the extent of spending a lot when we are not doing too well financially) in an effort to make-up for what we cannot give each other emotionally.  I’m sure she understands my point and she assured me that this one (the mobile phone) is a plain gift and her way of doing something for me as my wife.  We will continue to learn more in our joint path in life.  =)

YEN went for another scan yesterday.  The baby was either shy or not very co-operative that the doctor could not really tell from the scan if there was any presence of a male sexual organ at the crotch.  Even after taking a break and scanning again later, the baby refused to turn into a scan-favourable position.  So at the moment, the baby is most probably a girl.  I am fine with either a baby boy or girl, long as the baby is born healthy with no complications, and YEN is given as easy a time at birth as possible.  My mum is already claiming a part of the life of our unborn - she describes the child as her "grand-daughter" already, even before YEN or I could stake our claim on the baby!  Arrggh!

YEN tells me that the sex of the baby cannot be confirmed yet.  But I’m so excited already - that I’m telling the "whole world" about the joyous news!  It’s just so exciting - seeing her tummy grow bigger, imagining how the baby will grow up to look like, telling myself how I’m going to educate the baby…  Gosh, I haven’t thought of names yet!  Must work harder at that!  =)  My classmates seem as excited as I am - KIAT HOON and LYNN were asking me the sex of our unborn child and wanted to buy more girl-ly stuff for the baby already!  And yes, I must remind my buddies from the now defunct "Shaoer-zu" to get ready big red packets to give to our child when the baby acknowledges them as "god-parents"!

The past weekend saw the mock-terrorist attack at our transport system.  Saw in the news that a lady even fainted during the exercise, plus many others wanting "prior notice" to the exercise.  What?!  Wasn’t it plastered in the papers and news already?  Shows just how ignorant people can be to current affairs, eh?  And the lady who fainted - what can be said??

I’m currently taking this module - Instructional Methods in Physical Education in NIE.  Made me think back how PE was taught to us when we were very much younger.  I think we can all reminisce on "Boys - take this football and organise your own teams in the field; girls - take this netball and play your game of netball / captain’s ball".  Or relay runs / games?  What do activities like these teach children?  To dash forward a few steps, pick up the ball in the hoop, bounce it a couple of times, dash to the next hoop, hop ten times in it, etc.???

Yes, my classmates and I laugh at it now, but we can all attest to the fact that that was how PE was taught to us (if we actually count that as teaching!).  Draw this back to another lecturer’s words, "The two most important things in a PE lesson is - one, students must learn something out of the lessons; and two, they must have fun."  How do we do that?  And we have to think of the restrictions aplenty - the short, limited time every lesson is given (thirty minutes, if I’m not wrong), the need to have them changed + learn + changed back to uniforms within this time, "fighting" off teachers who want to use PE lessons to teach academic subjects (saying - "PE is non-examinable anyway!  It’s not as important; is it graded at the PSLE??")…  It is indeed a challenging task to be a PE teacher, and a more difficult task to be a good one at that!

The new semester has began together with the new year.  I returned from my mother-in-law’s with YEN on Monday afternoon, both stuffed with food, like turkeys on dining tables during Christmas, and felt extremely unwell after that.  YEN skipped dinner that night.  And that brought about my first MC in 2006…

I spent Monday night intending to watch TV (the Newcastle vs Middlesborough game was on - live; on hindsight, perhaps it was lucky that I didn’t sit through the whole game as I could have laughed myself to death watching the mistakes made by the hapless Newcastle defence, led by the "steady" French INTERNATIONAL defender Boumsong, his equally "brilliant" partners in crime - Titus "I can put no foot wrong" Bramble and Nigerian International Celestine "Like my big hair" Babayaro; haha, HA HA HA!!).  I ended up throwing up in the second half of the game a couple of times and didn’t watch too much of the game.

I was done throwing up only after the game ended (did I throw up BECAUSE of Newcastle’s horrible performance???) went to bed after that.  I woke up the next morning with a groggy head and a temperature.

The doctor I normally see attributed it to a "little" bout of fever and gave me MC for Tuesday and Wednesday.  My temperature still had not gone down on Tuesday night (it was 37.6 deg C) and my lower back was extremely sore.  I could done no more than lie in bed to sleep almost the whole day.  Talked about it with YEN later that night and concluded that it may be dengue - I had better go get a second opinion at a polyclinic.

So I went to get myself checked for dengue on Wednesday.  I had a "blood count" test where they tested with my blood platelets.  Results were negative then.  The doctor told me to go back to see her on Friday if I still had a temperature of > 37.4 deg C then, or if I still had aches / discomforts of any sort.  Luckily (or unluckily?!), my temperature returned to normal on Thursday.  Why unlucky??  I had actually wanted a few days’ stay in the hospital!  The bed and environment just seem to be calling out for me…  I can really use a good rest before school starts for me!!  (As if there hadn’t been enough rest!!)

Oh, I witnessed an accident on Thursday morning, as I was returning home after sending YEN to work (I had felt better already then).  Traffic had come to a standstill on AYE near the Clementi area on Thursday morning, and something was on my mind (so I didn’t exactly notice the cause of the accident).  I only know that the sedan car directly in front of me suddenly accelerated while we were not moving, and "kissed" the boot of a cab in front of it.  Wow, another accident involving a taxi.  I hadn’t wrote on the other accident just one or two weeks back involving another taxi too.  The taxi was then directly behind me, and suddenly changed lanes to the right.  I guess the driver hadn’t checked his blind-spot as it went sidefirst into the car in the lane it intended to go to.  I wonder how the negotiations went for both accidents…

It has been, like almost annually, raining a lot in December and January.  It is deterring me from washing our MARCH a bit.  No, really; it’s not just some made-up excuse by lazy car owners!  I’m always worried that it will rain the next moment I drive out after giving the car a good wash.  Perhaps, just perhaps, I can give our car a spray of dirty brown so that dirt / mud won’t show too easily if I fail to wash it often enough.  Hmmm…

Any parent still encouraging their children to be teachers?  I’m not sure how it will affect the profession after the case of the Everitt Road spats / tiffs has come to light.  The Ms CHAN is a teacher of a secondary school, and she has a PhD.  It probably still goes to show that the importance of advocating correct values to children from young.  It should go hand-in-hand with high qualifications??