And then there were 3A fulfilled & blessed life with 2.5 kidlets….

Omg, I can’t believe how time flies when you’re ‘having fun’! Someone on FB comment on my FB status…fun indeed. lol Well, technically it’s still a ‘honeymoon’ period for me since I am still able to move around without much distress and not THAT huge yet though I gather that I’ll be massive in the next couple of weeks. After all, at my last check up at some 28/29 weeks in Malaysia, bub was merely approximately 1.4kg and now he’s 1.7 kgs and me….I’m 88kgs now and was merely some 84 kgs the last time!! O.O So yes, I reckon I am piling on a fair bit although I don’t really know where it’s coming from since I don’t really eat much or stuff myself silly with that all time favourite line – eating for 2.

At the checkup today, doc was pleased with JR’s progress. All is going well and developing well too. Today’s scan showed him already facing downwards but I reckon with still space in there to do the tango, samba and disco, he’s still be moving about a fair bit before he settles into his birth position which I pray and hope is not sunny side up. That would be bad for me – painful as heck! As if labour itself is not painful enough. :/

Anyway, with things going well with the both of us, we’re scheduled to see the doc in 3 weeks times instead of the usual 2 which is good for us. One less appointment a step closer to D-Day. I couldn’t resist but ask doc about the miraculous raspberry leaf tea pills I have every intention of taking and apparently he doesn’t think it works but at the same time, it doesn’t hurt to take it either hence, I’ll start taking it from 34 weeks onwards.

After all, if it don’t hurt why not right? Plus, I still got my supply here from KR’s time. LOL :P A good reason not to be wasteful….

Before KR came along, I was very active in Postcrossing. It is like a whole global network of postcard crazy people who sign up to receive postcards. The more you send out, the more you get and I was a regular, posting 5 official Postcrossing postcards and numerous swaps and tags and what-have-yous from their official forum. I was in postcard heaven then! My postbox would never fail to have at least 3 postcards a day – I really made the postman work for his money! lol

But these days, all the swapping has totally ceased. I can’t remember the last time I ever posted one but I did get one last week or so from someone random on FB. She was someone I swapped it many, many, MANY moons ago so much so that I had totally forgotten about her! lol Glad she still remembers me though. I remember that I used to spend a fair bit of money on this hobby of mine. In fact, as a remembrance of those days, I have boxes of postcards I don’t know what to do with. I treasure everyone of them but dont know what to do with them at the moment coz it’s taking up space! Wish I could swap them for money, really….most of these are bought postcards. I rather buy them as well than to be printing postcards out. Although I reckon it’s not such a bad idea to be printing postcards out for special occasions and send it out to family members say for Christmas. I’m still toying about the idea of doing so since there will be 5 of us by then. :) We’ll see how it goes…but it’s definitely a thought! :)

I was meant to blog about this a few weeks ago when it happened but needless to say, I totally forgot about it! And to think this was something rather special and to a certain degree, important to me – as a pregnant woman and a mother of 2!!! :P

I can’t remember the last time I stepped foot in a club, let alone tortured my eardrums like I used to back in college. Heck, the last time I danced on a dance floor was back in….early 2006!!! O.O Can you imagine that??? Omg…almost 5 years since. Crikey, that’s really scary!! :/

So when the chance for me to once again torture my eardrums despite being 6 months pregnant, I jumped at it! *lol* No, I didn’t go CLUBBING….I went pubbing to a pub just literally down the road from my home. :D Yes, if I drove on neutral I’d arrive right at its doorstep coz it’s all downhill. :P It’s so close that I couldn’t even finish counting my 10 fingers and we’d arrive there – it’s THAT close by. Anyway, I went there with Sis and her friend…very nice of him to ask me along despite my condition. Hahaha….people might have thought him a pimp bringing 2 girls with him. :P

The thing with this place is that you don’t need to get all dressed up in all those party/clubbing “costumes“. Some girls really take it to a whole new level, it’s frightening! Me? I just went in jeans and a strappy maternity top. And even then the waitress asked me why I wasn’t drinking beer. :P I had a glass of coke instead – what else could I drink right? Would be ridiculous to ask for orange juice, so obvious then!!

It was really fun because the place doubles up as a karaoke as well so you get to sing along if you want to OR you could just request for the songs and they’d play it for you. The 3 of us ended up screaming at the top of our lungs to the Malay slow rock classics of the 90s. Bands like Search, Wings and Spring to name a few…of course, we also sang (along) songs from Alleycats as well. Happening!! :) I really enjoyed myself and it was hard trying to restrain myself from not jumping up
and grooving! LOL I think that would have scared away all the patrons. HAHAHAH!!

I am certainly looking forward to taking Ted there, he is a karaoke addict. Thank goodnes he hasn’t bought a set yet!!

All the women in my family have green fingers. Anything they grow, lives and bears fruit. Me….I’ve got the most rotten fingers ever! :( Nothing I’ve every grown has ever bore any fruit…heck, they never survive passed the 3rd day. But Mum hasn’t given up on me…. lol

The last 2 times she came over to help with the girls when they were first born, she would always end up encouraging me to start a small veggie patch on our balcony. And each time she gets me hyped up, I get excited and plan for something things that just don’t happen in the end. Her latest effort was to actually get a small herb garden going and honestly, I tried my best to keep them alive but alas, just a few weeks after she left, they began to die. :/

I honestly wasn’t surprised at all. In fact, she even suggested that I train Arianna to water the herbs for me which I did :

See…? I tried, Mum…I really did.

But after yet another failed patch I’m just about to give up but not Mum….she’s suggested something else now. Now she wants me to try one of those hydroponic systems!! *slaps forehead* I don’t know, Mum….I’ll have to think about it.

* Albeit having to have gone through several major crying sessions in the room.
** Project Paksa Tidur = Project Force to Sleep

If I’ve not mentioned it before, Arianna has been trying to skip her arvo naps since we got to Kulim. For the first 2 weeks or so, she was fine and good with her normal routine BUT after that, everything began to go haywire. >.< While most parents are quite ok with not getting their toddler to have an arvo nap, Arianna is not very good when she misses her nap. She gets cranky and when she gets cranky, poor KR gets the brunt of it all.

Hence, I am totally and utterly jealous of parents with toddlers who still have their arvo naps! Arianna won't even sit down quietly and color or take a rest. And this has caused me to resort to some rather drastic measures which trust me, I'm not proud of at all. But you gotta do what you gotta do!

Around 3.30pm, I managed to entice Arianna into the room and but she caught on to it and started crying and asking to let out. But I didn't give in and let her pretty much cry, scream, yell and bang on the door. I got fed up so, placed a chair in front of the door (on the inside - I was with her in the room) and just sat there with my eyes closed. Surprisingly, I actually fell asleep despite all the racket. Becoming a mother gives you selective hearing apparently! :P Anyway, she soon stopped crying and got onto the bed and rolled around a bit with Bear and about 1/2hr later, she was asleep with Bear on her head as usual.

It took me almost an hour to get her to fall asleep by just pretending.....that girl is tough!! I reckon you could compare her persistance to a steel building….. >.< While I admire her persistence in getting what she wants, it’s not doing either me or her any favours. Why won’t she just have a nap????? =.= *sigh* Wish me luck tomorrow, k?

People who know me won’t think much of the fact that I am a tatooed mum of 2 going on 3 kids BUT I still get stares from strangers. *lol* I’ts funny when I think about it because tattoos these days are something so common that even in Kulim some time ago, there was a small tattoo shop right in the heart of Kulim town. Needless to say, it didn’t last long! I reckon its because Kulim is small and most importantly, they may not have established their name.

I reckon Ted didn’t really know this dark side of me until later on but it never scared him at all. In fact, I reckon he loves my ink and has told me numerous times that he wouldn’t mind if I still wanted to get more ink done, which I plan to anyway. Except that tiny happening events keep occurring and thus preventing me from getting inked. *lol* One of the designs that I have in mind to get done will be near by abdomen hence I would need to ensure that it’s looking good before I allow the sun to shine on it! Yes, I’ll have to get Sara to help me set up some sort of workout routine/regime. One look at that woman and you wouldn’t have guessed that she had a baby just a couple of months ago – she’s smoking hot!! And look at me… >.< Horrifying.....then again, I might skip that and just go for some fda approved diet pills and risk getting disowned by my best friend! *lol*

Anyway, as an ink lover…I thought I might as well share with you one of my all time favourite tattoo documentary. I waited ages for it to be released on DVD and then a longer time after that coz they sold like hotcakes before I finally got my hands on this!! It’s called “Modify the Movie”.

Isn’t it just excellent!! :P

O, here’s a sneak peak at the trailer. :P Watch if you dare….

Since the last couple of weeks, I’ve had issues trying to get Arianna to have her afternoon nap. While a of parents I know don’t seem the least bothered by it, it drives me absolutely nuts! I wouldn’t mind if she had some quiet time to herself coloring or reading a book in bed, or just have a lie down without sleeping – I’m cool with that BUT instead, she’s like this energizer battery bunny that never runs out of steam!

Some days I can hardly keep my eyes open in the arvo because I’m just so tired. These days, having a 1hr afternoon nap seems like a must for me or I’d be like a walking zombie by evening time. I reckon if I weren’t pregnant and was planning on losing weight, this would get me better results compared to the best weight loss pills in town! While I may sound as if I’m exaggerating, I really am not. So one day, I decided to trick her into having an afternoon nap. *Inserts evil laugher*

I had found a crocheted UFO (UnFinished Object) which looked like a baby blanket lying around and decided to just finish up whatever yarn was left there in order to complete it. While I couldn’t think of what I could use it for, it suddenly occured to me that I could turn it into Arianna’s Bear’s blanket and that was what I did. I purposely crocheted the blanket in our room so that she’d follow me there and disturb me – this is normal coz she cannot stand to leave anyone alone to do their own thing. *sigh* On cue, she dashed into the room and started to irritate me and somehow I managed to get her to lie down and told her that Bear was tired and he wanted to sleep. Surprisingly she fell for it and although Bear’s blanket wasn’t finished, I just grabbed another crocheted piece from the cupboard and told her to cover Bear, which she did.

Then I pretended to lie down and told her to do the same coz, “We need to be quiet because Bear’s tired and he’s sleeping”. She fell for it and so I turned away from her so that she wouldn’t see me awake and pretended to sleep. Within 15minutes or so, she had unconstiously taken Bear and put him over her head, like she normally does and soon after, she was fast asleep! :D What a victory!!! What a success!! SO I continued to finished the said blanket so that it would be ready the next day for Bear. I wanted to pull the same stunt again.

Sadly it didn’t work the next day BUT the blanket did turn out alright, I think. :)

I’ll have to figure out something else to get her to bed coz without it, she’s just SO cranky by 6.30pm that it’s just ridiculous! And it’s when she is cranky that poor KR gets the brunt of it all…poor little thing, poor innocent little thing!!! Looks like I’ll have to FORCE her, literally to sleep….I have no other choice. :/

Both Arianna and I had a rather restless night last night. We had relocated to the middle room (from the back room) because I wanted to get her used to sleeping in another bed coz my uncle and aunt are planning to visit us over the weekend. I didn’t want to make it an overnight shocker for her so I started last night and OMG, it was not easy.

I guess it was partly my fault because I should have at least left her pillow as is and not change all the pillow cases so that she had something familiar to fall asleep to. Instead we had fresh sheets and pillowcases. *sigh* While I love falling asleep in fresh linen, Arianna was the opposite. She totally refused to come to bed and was crying for awhile until she finally decided it was no point coz we weren’t leaving the room until she fell asleep which she finally did at about 10.45pm! I was in bed with her pretending to sleep although I wasnt.

When she finally fell asleep, I was out out of the room in a flash! lol Was chatting with Mum till past 12midnight when Mum pointed behind me and there was this cheekly vegemite awake and standing behind me all groggy. >.< So I made her a blttle and tucked into bed right after. Then I went to have my bath and lo, and behold she was up again. So immediately after my bath, I went to bed with her to make sure she really went to sleep.

It took her a long time to fall asleep and even I had trouble falling asleep coz it was normaly my normal bedtime. I normally go to bed around 2am. But we finally did fall asleep but it was not a restful one. I actually hate that bed coz although it is suppose to be good for the back, I reckon instead of getting rid of your backache....it actually gives you one! :/

So I woke up with a terrible backache but thank goodness it has gone away. I'm not sure how I will continue to have a proper night's sleep on this bed but we don't really have a choice unles my uncle decides not to visit us. If so, I'd be more than happy to move back into our old bed!

Will only know tonight when he gets back from work....so while I would love to see him, sleeping in this bed is such a put off. >.<

Ever since Arianna’s hair started to grow below her shoulders, I’ve had major issues in trying to comb her hair to tie up so that it will look neat and tidy. While Ted loves the fact that his firstborn has lovely lock and wouldn’t mind if she looked like the first born of a caveman, I, on the other hand, beg to differ. It irritates me to see her hair in her face and putting myself in her shoes, I reckon it must be so irritating as well! Hence, we would continuously have this debate of cutting her hair shorter.

He finally sort of agreed to allow me to cut it while I was here in Malaysia and the minute I found the right moment – while she was having her bath and had washed her hair, I snipped off some 2inches! :) I was mighty pleased with my efforts although I would never be a good hairdresser! *lol* As you would have guessed, it was a little uneven but thankfully, with locks, you can’t really notice it.

Although it is still difficult to comb her hair these days, it is not as bad. I have however, found her weakness/Achilles heel…..MONEY. Yes, that’s right…this child actually knows the value of money and apparently, like her Godma (my sister) loves money!! *lol* What I normally do these days is to give her a coin and she’d be too occupied with it to bother about what I’m doing to her hair. I could actually comb her hair twice today because the first time, I didn’t do it right. Sis was a little shocked coz I managed to take my time when usually, it’s always a huge hassle which ends up with Arianna crying her eyes out and me all stressed up by the simple act of combing her hair.

Haiz, the things I have to do to just carry out simple daily and basic task. *sigh* Ted will have to see all this in action when he comes coz only then will he know how much I suffer with combing her hair.

Can you believe that I am now close to 20 weeks???? :P Although this is round 3 for us, I am just as excited as I was when I was preggers with Arianna when I went for my 20 weeks scan. Although with Arianna I was still in Malaysia and had only done the scan at 26 weeks after we got back from Malaysia.

Of course the results were not so clear since she had grown so much but it was enough to satisfy the doc. With KR, I had picked the wrong doc for my checkups and didn’t really have a say when he took merely 5 minutes to carry out what should have been at LEAST a 20 minutes scan. Turns out that it is not a routine scan done here in Malaysia and if you do want it done, you’d have to go to a specialist. Hence, I’ll be booking my appointment with Dr. Maha from Island Hospital this week.

If you didn’t know (especially my non-Penangite readers), Island Hospital is the most expensive on the island. And given the choice, it would not have been my pick due to several reasons. Mainly because it is located in Penang Island and I am in Kulim (now). The drive takes approximately 1hr (most times less) and I have to drag the kids along. Of course the cost is also another factor as well. It will burn a hole as big as RM260 in my pocket for just that one scan and it is not something I can claim back, which is a mighty big bugger for me. :/ And the only other reason why I am going to her is because my aunt’s doc told me to when I called to ask if he does the morphological scan. In fact, he recommended her and when I asked him about getting my glucose test done, he was kind enough to tell to go straight to the lab and get it done instead of going to a clinic. Told me that it was the cheapest shortcut for me. *lol* Guess he knew I’d be paying through my nose when I go to Island Hospital.

Anyway, I’m not sure what to expect but Aunty B reckons we should bring our ipods along just in case to keep the kids entertain in case they are not equip with stuff for kids to play with, etc. One would think that they should have toys and such there because mums go there and they should have something there for kids to play with to occupy themselves, right? In any case, I am not expecting much because the lower my expectations, the less horrid I’d feel if they did turn out to be below the standard that I’ve put them on. *sigh*