Vase 303 - 3 Aug 2014

Orchids are the flavour of the house now that a baby is coming. Nothing too fragrant for Meimei.

Our Baby Likes ...

You know how pregnant ladies have cravings. Preferences on foods take a wild turn and sense of smell become ultra sensitive, all of which may create a highly irritable mother-to-be.

Meimei's taste preference started to change about 6 weeks into the pregnancy. The most distinct change was a dislike for the taste of pork. This caught everyone around her by surprise. She loves pork, her favourite meat. Every meal had to have a pork dish.

It seems though our baby has a different taste palate. Meimei is now having foods you would rarely see her eating before.

Chicken - Meimei is a pork lover. Chicken is like a 3rd option meat, behind beef. She finds chicken a boring meat, bland with no flavour profile of its own. But  with the baby she starts to ask for chicken rice when I buy her lunch. We could have it for 3-4 days straight and it got to the point that Meimei was feeling bloated. It doesn't help that chicken rice are hard to digest so we try to cut down on the frequency to maybe 1-2 times a week. I also try to mix it up with other chicken dish like Ayam Penyet. Her friends and colleague are totally astounded at this change. The girl that has to have pork at every meal is now rejecting it?!

Laksa - For as long as I've known Meimei, I've never seen her have Laksa. Never. So it came as a shock when she started digging into my Laksa one fine Sunday morning at Qiji. Now she has it regularly whenever we are at Qiji. She even tried the Ya Kun version, which she didn't really like. I think its the strong aroma and taste that attracts her.

Ikea Hot Dog - This ranks up there as one of the weirdest too. This is pure junk food in Meimei's book. Yet she actively ask for it when we were at the checkout counter at Ikea. She would never ask for this before, but it seems our baby is drawn to the smell of hotdogs.

I'm expecting that Meimei's taste will change again as we move into the next Trimesters. We kept a box of durians in the freezer for any chance that she might crave for it in the middle of the night. Our pantry is also stocked with a couple of cup noodles for when she gets hungry at mid-night.

Thankfully she has not bugged me in the wee hours of the night for a particular food. I know she has her urges but she tries hard to sleep them off. *kiss thank you dear. Meimei is also trying to down pork in hopes that our baby will start to take to the meat. Can you imagine how restrictive it would be if both mum and dad likes pork but our little one can only take chicken? So ... Meimei 加油!

Gynae Visit - August 14

Today's appointment was both fun and worrying. Fun because we get to see our baby again. Worrying because Doc noticed something during the scan and recommended that we opt for the more expensive Harmony test.

We can start to make out our baby's shape from the picture. Very excited yet apprehensive about the doctor's comments. We will have to wait for the test result - in 2 weeks. All we can do at the moment is cross our fingers and hope for the best.

My First Rotten Apple

The wifi on my iPhone 5 died. It happen late June but only have time to blog about it now. That and the irritation of the laggy-ness of the old iPhone 4 prompted me to rant about it haha.

It took awhile before I noticed that the wifi on my 5 was dead. My first clue came when the telco sent an alert for hitting 80% of 4G data bandwidth. I was utterly confused why it was happened but checked anyways to see if I had inadvertently turned off the wifi. You know how sometimes it accidentally scrolls up the command centre and the wifi or bluetooth button gets on/off while in your pants. But no, that wasn't it, the wifi icon was still on. 

The next clue came when I tried to google to see if others were getting the same 'error' message by the Telco company. The wifi icon will start to spin but the web pages will not load. I thought it was the problem with the ISP connection again, which sadly breaks pretty often too, and reseted the modem. Nope that didn't help, pages are still not loading. And thats when I realised ... oh crap. It's like going back to my old Nokia. It's frustrating that the 5 died after only a little more than a year. I know things don't last forever, like how one of the USB ports on my Macbook no longer works. But without wifi the 5 is practically useless! 

So for the next week I didn't dare to update any of my apps and limited myself to only using Whatsapp on the phone. No safari, none of the news bulletin and definitely no gaming. Only on the day before the monthly billing period was gonna restart did I initiate the app updates. And that was done with care, checking the remaining data quota and matching the update size to make sure I didn't exceed.

Meimei brought us to Sim Lim to try to resuscitate the wifi by changing the antenna. Sadly it didn't work and the technician could only offer that we call up Apple to ask for a replacement unit. "Tell them you are a loyal Apple product user, best yet, if you have a few Apple gadgets, take a picture and show it to the customer service." "Oh and call the US hotline" Well that was an idea. We were after all loyal Apple fan ... we have 2 iPhone 4, 2 iPhone 5, Ipad, Ipad Mini Retina, Macbook Pro and an iMac. But well, in the end we didn't call. I didn't want to deal with another hassle with customer service.

Thankfully Meimei was here to the rescue again. She could sense my immense irritation and dug out her old iPhone 4 for me. It was a temporary measure, we are likely to get a iPhone 6 when it comes out later this year and I could then takeover her 5.

I'm disappointed that my 5 died. I've always thought Apple products were sturdily built. While it's not going to stop me from getting Apple products in the future, I'm starting to expand my selection to other brands. Those galaxy phones do look attractive.

Gynae Visit - July 2014

Thankfully Meimei no longer has episodes of spotting or pain in the abdomen since a fortnight ago. And because she has been retrenched she could stay home to rest. She has been receiving tender loving care, aka 2 hourly feedings followed by short naps, at her mother's place. I'm more comforted that she is receiving the proper care and relaxation she clearly needs. I can't imagine what it might have been had she had to continue to work. With all the crappy projects at work, she was extremely stressed having to manage her incompetent boss. Thats never good for an expecting mother. So its all good on the retrenchment. Funny how things turn out ... when you think it is bad, it turns out to be a the exact opposite.

Our baby is growing slowly. It's a bigger 'blob' now hehehhe. Looking forward to the next appointment :-)

Our 1st Scare

I'm posting this a few months after it happen. It was really a scary moment. Early in the morning and Meimei was having pain in the abdomen. And there are spotting too. We just saw Doc a few days ago and the nurse had warned about spotting.

We immediately made our way to Thomson Medical. The nurse didn't dare to prescribe medication so we called Dr Loh to come down. The nurse warned us of the huge cost but nothing's more important than the safety of Meimei and baby.

Thankfully baby was ok. Doc gave Meimei a stabliser jab and instruct her to rest more. So she is on mc in the coming week. I think the stress at work is weighting on her. I supposed its a blessing in disguise that she is being retrenched, she can get a good rest to 养胎.

Phew, what a relief ... Doc gave us another pic of our baby again. I hope we don't get this sort of scare again. The tension and anxiety is really extreme.

The 1st Month

Today is our first doctor's meeting after the pregnancy was confirmed. Dr Loh conducted a quick scan and showed us where our baby is. We even have a picture of the baby in the womb. The little white dot in the middle is our little baby.

This is truly exciting times. I'm slowing starting to read up on the many aspects of pregnancy. The most critical seems to be the first trimester. Hopefully all goes smoothly.

The Many Expressions Of Mrs Pokpok

Meimei is one quirky lady, full of expressions. I love her, loathe her, adore her and sometimes am left dumbfounded by her many mannerisms. She brings a lot of fun to my otherwise dull life as I'm truly a boring person. So I can appreciate her quirky moments and can't get enough of it, even when she disturbs me (in a loving fun way) and gets me all ruffled up. Hehe.

Miss Hulk
Meimei has a hulk-like streak. Really ... she will clinch her fist, huff and puff until her face turns pink. You will see daggers shooting from her eyes and wonder if her eye lashes will suddenly combust and light up in fire. And when she lets out her war cry "Arrrgghhhh!!", you know her hulk sense has come to the top of her head. 

This usually happens when she drops her cardigan or towel on the floor. She will go ballistic over it, angry with herself for being careless and doing a foolish act. This is where I'll quickly comfort her by taking the offending cloth and make a commanding statement to wash it for her. I never fail to let out a sheepish grin and give her a light peck on her head to calm her down. Kisses does wonders.

You are right!

Complimenting someone for being right is a nice gesture to show your appreciation and acknowledge the greater insights and knowledge that a person has. In the case of Meimei, she will let out a beaming glow and ear to ear smile and proclaim "I'm always right :-P" .... Ahhhhh that glee and grin on the face ... I makes you go "Humph!".

I've learned to be more stingy with my compliments. But I'm the forgetful sort, so off and on I'm still prone to acknowledging her. And she never fails to rub it in. :-)

Sleepy kidz
Meimei is like a little kid. One of her friends calls her a 大小孩. There is some truth to the description. She gets grumpy whenever she is sleepy and will 'sleep walk' to the bedroom, like how you would like a little girl do. You know how kids looks when they are sleepy yet try to stay awake, the half open eyes and sheepish cheeky grin? Hehe.

"Okie, Bye~!"
Again Meimei is like a little kid when she wants to have fun. She has no qualms about going off on her own to play. Much like how kids forget their parents when they run off to play, Meimei will happily let out a "Okie, Bye~!" when she goes do her own fun stuff. I will always be dumbfounded momentarily whenever she does that, followed by a big smile seeing how chirpy she is in her own world of joy.


Meimei has a lot of other quirks and expressions. Sadly I'm limited in my vocabulary and language to adequately describe them. I can only keep those scenes in my memory and hope they last the test of time.

Summoners War

It's been quite awhile since I've gotten really into a new game. Amazingly I'm still at it in Battle Nations. But now I share my playtime with Summoners War. 

It's fun to collect cute summons and battle stages or random players with them. You also get to collect runes to power your summons. I think it's success stamps from its RPG and action based elements. Also you don't have to spend a lot of time to get ahead, you have limited energy points anyways. So if you are into a RPGish game and don't have lots of time to invest in levelling up your characters, this may be the game for you.

A New Beginning

The next phase in our journey. It wasn't easy to reach this milestone. Unlike most folks, we had to go through periods of doubts, cries, uncertainty, disappointment and hope.

For many, a baby comes naturally after marriage. It's harder for us and having been married for four years, we really wanted to add a new member to our family. I have nothing but immense hard felt thanks to Meimei for enduring through all the medication and jabs just so we have a better chance and not leave everything to nature. We finally got lucky and were blessed with good news on the 3rd try.

So the next few months are going to be a very exciting time for us and also our family. This is the first grandchild for both our parents so I'm anticipating a lot of attention to our progress. All I wish now is for Meimei to have a smooth pregnancy and delivery and for our baby to be well and healthy.

Football Kitty Craze 2014

2014 Football World Cup is now on. With it comes all the related advertising promotions in all shapes and forms. And as if the recent Kitty sale wasn't enough, MacDonalds released a K-league collection for the World Cup event ... in Hong Kong!!

Now distance wasn't going to deter Meimei from getting her hands on it. So she asked her colleagues in Hong Kong to get a set and airmailed them to Singapore ... gosh. And why are the boxes open? That's because my Mother-in-Law bought another set and hand-carried it to Singapore!

Meimei has been thinking of lining this K-league set of Kitties in the car. Oh well, they are cute (tone of reluctance).

MBA Project Finale

Ok I can say my MBA commitments are finally done, truly done. I've been working on the MBA group final project dissertation for since late December and we have just submitted it today.

It was fortunate that the school referred me to a group who was working on a topic familiar to what I've been doing over the past couple of years, i.e. outsourcing management. Two of my team mates are controllers in the company and so they brought up this project topic as part of their internal management assessment on the feasibility and knowledge buildup for their proposed outsourcing of the finance team. So this was a 'live' project and we were able to truly appreciate the commercial perspective of the initiatives.

I'm glad the team members were all hardworking and clear on the objectives. I've heard horror stories of group projects that went wayward, with members splitting due to unreconcilable differences. It certainly didn't look as such at first, given that one was in Tokyo, another in Bangalore, but we made it work. 

So now I'm looking forward to the graduation at the end of the year. Maybe I'll get a chance to go Manchester for the ceremony. ;-)

Vase 303 - 2014 14th June

Been awhile since we bought flowers. I really like the rich purple. Contrasts very well with the stalk.

Kitty Galore 2014

Kitties! Tuxedo Sam is my favourite. And I'm pretty sure Pompom Purin is a rabbit in disguise! 

One Dish Wonder No More

We have been cooking occasionally recently, more so than in the last 3 years we've been living together. I've sometimes been insensitive and commented that Meimei is a one dish wonder cook. I think she resents that monicker to a certain degree.

Over the last week, she has cooked up a feast for Mama, Sis and me.

And today she made a simple yet extremely satisfying 三菜一汤 meal. At the end of the meal she said in a calm resounding tone, "I'm no longer a one dish wonder." 

*muach thank you dear dear for cooking such wonderful meals. This is what I call 幸福! And no, you are no longer a one dish wonder.