dreamlaughlive

All I really want now, is a normal week. I just want a weekend with no events and my usual 4-day work week. The past few weeks have really taken a toll on me. It's been like almost 5 weeks since I had a good weekend's rest.

First things have really picked up at the workfront. I no longer leave work at 6ish in the evening anymore. Gah. I really need to learn to be more efficient at work.

And then, my mum got hospitalized. She was complaining of chest pains and breathlessness. Shocking it was. Suddenly, my all-healthy mummy is tested for heart problem. That week saw me taking urgent family care leave and we were just in and out of the hospital that weekend. Thankfully, she was fine after resting in the hospital for a few days!

And then, smart-ass me decided to go on a course. To keep myself relevant, I thought. Not that good a decision for my family, it turned out. There was some re-scheduling of the sessions in the course, which lead me to burn two off-days plus a full weekend. Which means that I was working + attending classes for 12 straight days, no break in between. I almost died of exhaustion. This whole arrangement took a toll on my dear hubs too, cos he was taking up the baby-care duties while I was at classes. And so he fell sick the last week.

I had thought, phew, finally a weekend last fri. But turns out, my dear boy caught the flu bug from his daddy. Sigh. It was just really about mopping up puke and having a sick bub clinging to me all weekend, day and night. Had to bring the boy to see the pd this morning. So I took urgent am childcare leave; really thankful for totally understanding bosses at work, bless them!

Just that I gotta head back to work this afternoon, leaving my boy and his drippy nose at home. A whole lot of mummy guilt, really. Sigh. How do other mummies handle it??

Now, I just want the week to move on. And for my boy to get well. Weekend, come soon, will you?

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I don't know if it's the year of the dragon or just cos I am at that life stage, recently, there's so much news about friends giving birth, getting pregnant, trying for a baby.

And I am feeling a baby-itch.

Suddenly, I start thinking to myself how nice it feels to be pregnant. And oh, the sweetness of brand new babies. I entertain thoughts of having a large family (in my perfect world, I would have 4 babies) and how sweet it will be for the boy to have siblings to hang out with (very cool idea to me cos I m an only child).

Actually, part of me, a large part in fact, feels that I will never ever be ready for another baby. Now that I just gotten part of my life back. I am still adjusting to life with a kid. I am still struggling with getting enough sleep. And I miss having holidays lots!!

And then I think about the sleep deprived early days. I don't think I am ready to go through it all over again.

But there's this small voice telling me that maybe I will be ready for a second baby. I wonder if it's just the selfish part of me who just loves the idea of being pregnant; to me, that's a very enjoyable, if not most enjoyable, part of being a mummy. And recently, I have been thinking about the birth that I had so wanted, and I just keep thinking about what I would have done differently if I could 're-do' the boy's birth. It's like a unfulfilled wish hanging over my head.

For now, it's just a itch. I don't know if I will ever ever act on it.

Some day. Maybe :)

P.s It just occurred to me while typing this entry that the boy's due date was supposed to be Tmr one year ago (i.e 17 Mar). Maybe it's just my subconscious mind itching.

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Pfft. It's been a while since I wrote anything. I have been exhausted these few days! And it's been a mad mad rush to get home after work everyday. Not that I am thaaaat busy at work. I just need to learn to be more efficient me thinks. How do other working mums do it?!

Ah well, it doesn't help that the LJ app doesn't save my drafts! I have tried writing at least three posts which I didn't finish but the drafts just disappear when I come back to continue. And I have been tired/lazy/not inspired to re-write those posts again.

Anyways, hope your Monday is going well, whoever still reads Heh

One more reason why I have been lazy to write, I've jumped on the Instagram bandwagon! It's much easier to document my life in photos plus short captions heh. The photo above is taken as part of the photo-a-day challenge (thanks to mummybean who inspired me to join it!) it's day 20, theme is handwriting. So that's my ugly one above!

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Alright, done with raving abt the venue. Here's some other bits on the celebration :)

It's a rather small celebration cos both F and I decided we just wanted a small cosy one. We didn't want to stress ourselves out by organizing a big do since it's CNY week and I just headed back to work a few weeks ago! So we settled on having a guestlist of 30ish. It was rather hard to cut down the numbers, cos there's so many we wanted to invite to share the special day. And we ended up with 35 of our closest friends and 10 kiddos.

The Theme
I had wanted a fun happy themed party, so I chose to use pinwheels as the deco theme.

I actually hand-made the pinwheels myself everynight after the boy went to bed about a week before. It wasn't too hard but still, I took a few nights!

The Cake
What's a birthday without a cake, right? I had the cake designed to fit the pinwheels theme too. I ordered it from a blogshop which a friend recommended. Though it exceeded my budget a bit, it turned out so pretty and was really yummy, I think it's money well-spent!

This photo doesn't do the cake justice I think. There's a real pinwheel right at the top which wasn't captured (my bad!). I think the lady who made it really brought the design to life. Many guests commented that they thought it's a display piece only, and not meant to be eaten, LOL. And when we finally cut the cake and tasted it, I had guests who asked whether I had extras for them to bring home.

The Goodie bags
Quite honestly, the celebration was more of an adult function. The boy was probably quite puzzled why so many pple came to talk to him! Other than the boy, there were quite a few kids at the celebration, I packed some goodie bags for them ;) I didn't have much time to shop for the goodies so I ended up with organic snacks and raisins, plus a set of bubbles with wands in colorful shapes from Toy'r'us.

Can't see from the photo, but each bag came with a little pinwheel which I hand-made too! :) Needless to say, the kids had fun with the bubbles!

So there, the little details that made the celebration :)

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We just celebrated my lil boy's birthday yesterday!

Can you tell what's the theme?

It was held at the very lovely Cookyn Inc. And I want to just dedicate a post to talk about the place. Cos it was that good :)

The food was without a doubt delicious. I've got so many guests telling me how much they enjoyed the food. Like a friend who barely stepped in ten mins, she was eating off her plate as she was taking food from the buffet line and she actually walked up to me saying 'hey, the food is reaaallly good!!' as she was still munching.

But what really impressed me was the service. Everyone was very warm and sincere. I could feel that the team really wants to make sure everyone was comfortable. It was really hospitality at it's best; unpretentious and puts everyone at ease. Service was always with a smile! A few things that made me really happy:

- Our celebration was supposed to start at 1130am and F and I only reached 1130am. We had wanted to be there early to put up deco and all. But my boy took a long nap in the morning, so we went out later than planned. I was quite frazzled when I reached cos deco was not up yet, cake delivery was waiting for us there and my boy was still half-awake! But once I stepped into the Cookyn kitchen, the team gave me such warm smiles and I felt relaxed right away :) And while I was trying to settle the boy, F tried to put up the deco. The very sweet ladies from Cookyn volunteered to help with the deco! Major phew for me cos honestly, I wasn't too confident abt F putting up the deco; you know, men!!

- And while we finally settled down a bit, we were offered drinks, without having to ask for it :) Makes me feel right at home!

- Like I said, food was super! What I loved was that while guests mingled and chat, the team actually brought trays of food around, making sure everyone had enough to eat. I was even offered food a few times cos they saw me running about entertaining guests and haven't eaten much; this makes me feel so well taken care of. Loves.

- There were many other small gestures. Like after cake-cutting, the team helped to portion and hand out the cake to guest. I really appreciated that cos somehow F and I were both very tied up and didn't have enough hands to take care of the cake. And when guests want to bring the cake home, I asked for small containers and without a second thought, the leftover cake was packed into containers for my guests. And the team is really helpful like some guests were carrying babies, and wanted to get food, the team at Cookyn offered (a few instances i noticed!) to help bring the food to the guest. Really attentive pple!! ;)

All in all, it was really a fab party held at Cookyn Inc. I would surely recommend the place for a cosy party! Two thumbs up :)

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Since I started work 3 weeks ago, I've met with problems with my pump almost every week. And I actually was extremely lucky to be 'saved' each time by a fellow mummy at work. She's been most lovely to lend me pump parts that I forgot to bring or brought but not working. And I had been thinking of paying her kindness forward by buying some supplies (like the cleansing liquid to wash pump parts, breast milk bags, ziplock bags etc) to stock at the nursing room at work.

But guess I might have gotten the sign to wean much earlier than I hoped. Yes, pump trouble today again. And this one really takes the cake. I think my pump is officially dead. Like the motor is not working kind of dead :( Ended up I actually had to HAND-EXPRESS at work today. I'd usually pump at lunch time and it takes all but 15-20 mins to pump and wash up. Today, I spent 30 mins expressing manually by hand, for a pathetic 120ml of milk. I had to do another round at 330pm for another 100ml. Man, it was hardwork. And I felt like a cow and a milkmaid at the same time! I think mummies in other nursing cubicles must be thinking how quiet this pump next door is.

Part of me was cursing my bad luck. But I was also thankful that I had previously read about hand-expressing. It was my last resort and never had to do it cos there was this angel mummy saving me each time my pump threw a spanner my way. Today, I thought it was too much to call angel-mummy for help cos I just troubled her like last Thursday. So sigh. And luckily, I've got another single pump at home. It's gonna be slower but at least something. I don't think I'll go buy another set of pump cos I prob won't do this pumping thing for one more year, more like two more months. Just hope my single pump is still working!

If all else fails, at least it's one more day till sat. And I can go drop my spoilt pump at the repair centre on sat. Else, we are just forced to wean abruptly. We haven't even decided which formula milk to go with. *wail*

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Cos of some exigencies at work, I gotta be back in office today, which was supposed to be my off-day (boss was sweet to say I can take two days off next week instead of just the usual Wednesday off)!

And bcos Wednesdays are our grocery run days, I have totally run out of fresh supplies for the boy's food at home. So I decided to run to a nearby supermarket during lunch to stock up.

And, I really feel so Aunty carrying the big supermarket plastic bags back to office! Eeew. Haha

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It's the first full weekend we had for ourselves in a very long time. Since getting married, we've always spent weekend dinners with our folks (sat with mine, sun with F's). But now that we have a kid and I am back at work, we decided we needed time for our lil family of three. So weekends are all on our own. Hurray I say! :)

This evening, we had a huge hawker feast. Just F and I. Lots of junk food to satisfy our craving from last weekend (we tried going to hawker center for dinner at East Coast park but was too crowded!).

It was a challenge to eat with a baby in tow though. There was just limited time to eat before his patience run out. But we still managed. The satay and sambal stingray was yum. And I ended my meal with a refreshing coconut :)

And it's back to work Tmr! It's another 2 days of work and then I get a mid-week break. I hope my lil boy doesn't suffer from Monday blues Tmr!

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So Yay, I survived my first week back at work! Aside from the heartbreaking first day, when the lil one cried as I stepped off the car, I think I am enjoying being back in civilization :)

Day 1 didn't go very well actually. It was really hard to say goodbye to my boy. And come lunchtime when I went to the nursing room to pump, I realized that I didn't bring my adapter plug (cos mine was a US set which I got at half the SG price). I eventually managed to buy a new plug at a stationery shop nearby, but the pump didn't start up with the new plug. So I was running all around trying to see what the problem is (tried plug, adaptor, pump at different nursing rooms). Luckily I managed to find a mummy using the same pump in the nursing room and we figured it was the brand new adapter which was not working. But I still managed to pump cos the extremely kind mummy lent me her plug! So thankful!!

And cos I am still on a part-time arrangement, I got Wednesday off!! So I had a day's break after the first day.

Thursday and today went very well. My dear boy managed to settle nicely into the routine. He was rejecting milk on Tuesday and he didn't want dinner too (he wanted to nurse once I got home). These 2 days, he's much better and was eating, napping well. Think it's really encouraging cos I had expected the transition to be harder. I expected to feel terribly sleepy all the time, but lucky, I wasn't.

Well, of course I still miss my son very very very much when I am at work. It's a mad rush to get home in the evening. But being back reminds me why I still love my job. I like doing something. And I really still enjoy the very nature of work I do. Sure, there's still some politics around. But which workplace doesn't have ANY politics? I think I win by having been away for a year and I feel so refreshed. Plus, I've been leaving when I still see the sun. Nice. Heh.

I really feel like celebrating this little success this weekend! :)

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Ah the year's coming to an end! I was just reading through my year-end post last year. I was just stepping into my third trimester of the pregnancy this time last year. And I actually didn't set any new year's resolution for the year. Phew. Becos I really didn't do much this year. It's just baby, baby, baby, baby and all about baby.

This year, F and I spent so many nights having supper of biscuits and Horlicks on the floor of our bedroom as our lil boy slept. It was something like our wind down time of the day as we try to catch some couple time. Man, I still remember how sleep deprived we were those early days. We were on these crazy 3- hourly schedules where we fed, changed the boy, I pumped while F held the boy for half an hour after the feeding (cos of his reflux problem) and when we are done, we set our alarm clocks to wake up in another hour's time to start the whole cycle again. I always tell F, it felt like I have been to a camp that lasted months (we used to go for camps when we were younger and we don't sleep much then!). So glad we survived this far. Of course, there are just days we feel like killing each other, when we were both short-fused. I suppose our relationship came out stronger, since this whole parenthood thingy didn't kill us :)

The other thing that happened this year was our lifestyle change. It came with the baby. And of course, I stopped getting income for a while as I took the year off work to be with the lil one. Plus, F's actually on sabbatical this year. So we've just became more frugal. We think twice about spending nowadays. And we only gone on a grand total of one holiday this year! But then, old habits die hard; we still indulge ourselves in good meals every few weeks.

Actually this year is supposed to be a big milestone year for my relationship with F. It's our tenth year together. Unfortunately, it's over-shadowed by the fact that we have a baby on hand. We didn't do any big celebration or gift any big presents. Very unromantic. Definitely not how I had envisioned celebrating the occasion. Well, I suppose having a baby together in our tenth year counts as making it momentous.

Aside from life at home, this year saw me making some new friends and rekindling a couple of old friendships. Mostly in the name of motherhood really. It's quite funny how parenthood brings people together. I used to tell F that parenthood is like a cult. Once you are initiated, you wear the badge of membership everywhere you go.

Next year, 2012. I hope we get our lives back on track a bit! Things are surely getting better as the boy grows bigger now. But then, we've got a couple of changes coming along next year. We may be moving, I said may. Heh. It's cliche to say this but it seems like change is the only constant. Anyways, I have got a few simple resolutions that I hope to achieve next year:

1) Stop spending unnecessarily. Although I stopped getting income for a few months this year, I don't think I stopped spending. My credit card bills were same as it was before. I was on shopping ban for a while and still I really don't know what I spent on. Just say I am real bad at keeping to budgets. So this is something I want to work on next year :)

2) Be nice. And be less critical. Enough said.

3) Celebrate the little things and don't sweat the small stuff. Since we just went through a year of change, think I can't expect too much from life. Part of me feels the anxiety of having to do the whole balancing act as a working mum next year. So I think I want to be kinder to myself, not be so uptight and let loose a bit :)

And lastly, I really want to thank everyone who's been with me here through the year. Thank you for reaching out to me when I was down. Thank you for leaving your words of encouragement. Thank you for sharing the special moments. Thank you for reading :)

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