Baby @ 30 Weeks and 3 Days

The countdown now is about 7 weeks to go before my c-sect. That is, if everything goes to plan and the last placenta abruptio with Faith was a one-time only experience in my lifetime.

A huge part of me is looking forward. I've puked so much in this pregnancy than I ever did with Faith and in my entire lifetime. Even though I'm in my 3rd trimester.

Yet, each puking session is not a result of any prolong morning sickness. Instead, I've developed some extreme backaches since the early days of my 2nd trimester. Sitting for long periods becomes a trial and some sort of tribulations. On good days, I can put in a full day work and am none the worse for wear except that I need to head straight for the bed after I reach home to give my aching back a break.

On other days, I start feeling nauseous around the afternoon of my full-day workdays and it inevitably results in a porcelain-hugging session in the ladies. Every bout of these puking session leaves me weak and again, I'll be zapped of all energy and appetite at the end and would pretty much head straight home to bed for the rest of the night.

There's just no predicting whether the body can take the long periods of sitting down. I've taken to keeping my nausea pills, in addition to my seaband (it was great at combating my early morning sickness but not for these backache-induced nausea) in my wallet.

Apart from the puking and the extreme backache, I just can't seem to dredge up as much energy compared to the first pregnancy. Maybe its age, maybe its the fact that each pregnancy is different. Regardless, I've taken to a lot of bed rest whenever I can.

Poor Louis and my mom ends up taking on most of the task of care-giving and entertaining Faith, especially on my work-days.

With 7 weeks left and the festive CNY period around the corner, I'm also feeling jittery and apprehensive too. There's a lot of backlog grant memo work that I haven't been able to clear as I was involved in corporate planning exercise. Sure, I'm not indispensable and I only work part-time. However, I've got a great boss and a bunch of understanding colleagues who have been very helpful and accommodating of my part-time arrangements.

So, I hope to be able to clear as much work as I can before I have to either quit or take a leave of absence. It is my intention to attempt to apply for a leave of absence again. But if I can't, then my last alternative would be quit my job at the end of my maternity leave.

Back to baby @ 30 weeks.

This week, the check-up was a bit more encouraging in that I've put on nearly 2 kg in 2 weeks, compared to last month when I only put on a miserable 300g in my 6th month(Yep, you read right! Its not a typo.).

My total weight gain so far is about 7 kg and I've got another 7 more weeks or so to go to hopefully ply on a bit more weight - or rather, that baby would be able to fill up better and I'm praying fervently that I wouldn't end up with another low birth weight baby again. With Faith, I only had a total weight gain of 8 kg.

Yet, as I have all this considerations in my mind, today's check-up also put puts things in perspective for us as to what's really important.

Becos of my previous placenta abruptio, there's a 5% change of it re-occurring and no one can predict if and when it ever happen again, which time period would it occur again.

My ob/gyn shared that over the weekend, a colleague of his delivered a stillborn baby of a woman who was 36 weeks along and had placenta abruptio. She had no signs of bleeding and it was too late by the time they discovered it.

As a mother and as someone who had gone through a placenta abruptio, it leaves me with a sense of great sadness for the woman and her stillborn child. More, it serves as a reminder that while most pregnancy ends in a joyous celebration of life, for me, there's always an element of uncertainty and risk involved.

For all that Louis and I sometimes wonder whom the baby will resemble or whether she would be a normal weight-ranged newborn, the truth of the matter is that they matter less than the healthy and safe delivery for both me & baby.

We certainly trust our ob/gyn implicitly in his experience and skills. What's left really is faith and hope that things would turn out better this round

We had faith the last time and were thankfully able to deliver Faith, safe & healthy. We can only put our faith and trust once again in our ob/gyn and the higher order up there for a 2nd time and pray for a safe & healthy delivery experience.

Japan Trip Nov 2009 - A video says a thousand words

Instead of writing about the trip - we thought - why not let the pictures do the talking. A little loss in picture quality when converted to video, but still, I think you get the picture - we will remember this trip for some time to come - we hope Faith does! Enjoy...

Deepavali Treats

Louis and I are fortunate to have known and count many Indians among our network as great friends. Even though we have always enjoyed the local Indian fare, it is through our Indian friends that we'd learnt to understand and appreciate the culture a little better, along with the great curries, dals and myriad creativity of the cuisine.

And becos a number of them are vegetarians, I've learnt to make a few vegetarian dishes along the way and picked up other dishes from my own little limited collection of Indian cookbooks to create my own favourite home-cooked Indian dishes.

We really dig the diverse and tantalising Indian cuisine and on the occasions that I do make some of these dishes at home, Louis would be happily mopping up the curries with roti/naan or covering the top of his basmati rice with it.

Today's Deepavali, as it is known in Singapore. For many of our friends who are of Northern Indian origins, it is called Diwali. I guess they mean the same thing, just that its called differently depending on whether its in Tamil or Hindi.

Our neighbour right across from our units are Indians. Other than the nodding of heads and the occasional smiles when we see each other on our way home or in the estate, we have not really built much rapport or talked much to.

However, in recent months especially, they have been particularly friendly towards our little girl, smiling and talking to her when they see her at the lift lobby. Maybe its becos Faith smiles a lot even to strangers or kids just have this knack to break the ice even among the most reticent of adults.

This morning, the door-bell rang at lunchtime. When we opened the door, it was to find our neighbours with 2 big bulging plastic bags, filled with containers of briyani, chicken and mutton curries, prawn masala dishes and Indian sweets.

We were absolutely surprised and touched by their gesture. In fact, when I was reading early this morning in the living room at 4-ish am (I've become an insomniac ever since I'm conceiving #2), I could already smell the tantalising aroma of curries wafting through the corridors and into our unit.

They must have been hard at work, chopping, cutting and preparing to cook all the curries and great food fresh for the festive season.

It was a lot of food for the 2 of us and Louis brought most of the food for our in-laws. The great thing about curries is that they keep well and taste even better a day or more after cooking.

So, Louis and I are going to have us a great lunch today, compliments of our neighbours.

To all our Indian friends out there, Happy Deepavali or Diwali!

#2

Most friends that we know of who have had 2nd kids professed that they adopt a less hands-on approach towards their offspring for a number of reasons. Or rather, they display lesser anxiety and are generally more laid-back compared to being first-time parents.

That might well be true for us too going by the number of posts we have posted on our #2 so far.

Zilch, nada, zero, none.

After reaching the milestone of the 3rd month, which we could publicly inform all and sundry that we are expecting #2, I had merely updated our profile to indicated that there's a bun in the oven.

So now, I'm about 19 weeks along, or think I'm about 19 weeks cos I keep losing count of how many weeks along am I, and other than close friends, I've not really made any announcement on this blog.

So there you go. Now you know. We are expecting #2 in a matter of months.

Do we know the gender yet, do we have a preference for which and when am I due?

For the first question, we'd probably would be able to find out at the end of this month when I go for my detailed scan around the 20th week. Do we want a boy this time since we already have a girl. Well... I'm not sure. All we are hoping for, given our last experience, is that mum and baby would have a safe and uneventful delivery.

Technically, I'm due on 12 Mar 2010. Owing to my placenta abruptio from the previous time, the gynae is pre-empting that it might happen again. So, we are targeting for me to go for a scheduled c-sect around the 37th week. That would put it around end Feb 2010.

I do hope that with this post, we would be a bit more diligent about our posting. After all, we do not want our #2 to feel neglected.

Cold Storage Kids Run - 24 May 2009

Two months back, I signed Faith up for the Cold Storage Kids Run 09, under the non-competitive, 700m Blue Sky Chase category for kids aged between 2-4 years old.

Flag-off time for the race category was at 9.25 am but we needed to report in at 8.55 am. The only little tricky issue was waking Faith up, feeding her breakfast and making it out of the house before 8.30 am if we were to get there in time -- she usually wakes around 9-ish am.

With all the noise that Louis and I were making, Faith roused out of sleep by 7.45 am. Even though she was still groggy, we changed her out of her PJs, fed her a light breakfast and were ready to leave by 8.15 am. My MIL called to say that she would join us for the trip to the race. My dad, meanwhile, would rendezvous with us at the Padang.

Having decided to park at Raffles City Shopping Centre, we went up the carpark basement escalator to find scores of parents and kids geared up in their exercise togs and the race t-shirts. All of us were going in the same direction to the Padang.

The parent t-shirt reads "I'm a proud parent" at the back while the kid t-shirt reads, "I'm a proud runner". Faith's t-shirt hung a little big and loose for her, but since this wasn't meant to be a kids' pageant and we weren't out to make any fashion statement, it was totally fine. I forgo the standard-issue (or rather the race t-shirt that we were forced to buy - there wasn't any option not to buy a parent t-shirt during the online registration) and wore my own exercise gear.

Scorching was the word out at the Padang. Even though it was a short distance from RCSS to the Padang, I was perspiring profusely by the time. Faith's hair was totally drenched even before she started the race.

Faith and I headed to the holding area before we were shepherded to the start of the race line at 9.20 am. My dad, MIL and Louis continued to wait at the Padang while we were racing becos there was a supposed parent to kid ratio of 1:1. In actual fact, during the race, there were lots of family exceeding the 1:1 ratio but neither the organisers nor the race contestants really minded cos it was meant to be good fun anyways.

There were lots of young kids around Faith's age. I presumed young becos they were all being carried by their parents. One Caucasian mother was jokingly remarking to me that she hope we wouldn't have to carry our little ones for the entire 700m.

I knew I would be carrying Faith for part of the race becos I expected that she wouldn't want to run all 700m on her own. However, I figured that seeing other kids running on their own would inspire her to want to get down and race a little too.

Thankfully, Faith was a good sport and was gamed to hold my hand and run for more than half of the race. I only carried her midway through the race becos I was afraid she would be too tired out or would over exert herself. I put her down again to race for the last leg of the run.

When we crossed the finishing line, we were given a goodie-bag/plastic bag with water, a race completion certificate and two wrist-bands amongst other things. Even though it was not a competitive race, there were people distributing a star-shaped medal for every kid.

We met up with Louis, my MIL and dad after the race. We spend some time cooling down at the field and also collected some more goodies -- bananas and Dettol hand soaps.

By 10 am, we headed towards to the carpark while my dad headed off to walk around at Suntec City.

Even though it was a short 700m run, we were all tuckered out. Faith slept early at my MIL's place. Louis and I too catch a good 2-hour nap ourselves at home.

Its Faith's first ever race and Louis and I are PROUD Parents!

Family dinner and last day of JG semester

Another fulfilling and happy week...:)

1) Faith's JG Mandarin Playclub's 1st semester party

2) Family dinner at Hua Ting

The little family of bookworms

These are the reasons why I haven't been regular with my posts.

Books. Borrowed from the library.

Not all of them for me, saved for just 2 titles.

Louis & I have been together for 8 years, of which we've been married for 5 years. In all these time, he's not read a single fiction book from start to finish. In the earlier years when we were dating, I had given him as presents a couple of books from Bill Bryson which I enjoyed tremendously.

Not even for the sake of our courtship days would he read the books that I've given him from cover to finish. Actually, I'm not even sure if he'd even thumbed through a few pages :)

I'm the regular bookworm. Books are where I enter into another realm of fantasy, romance, suspense, travel or whatever, depending on the genre that I'm reading. I'd rather curl up in bed reading a good book to recharge myself for the weekend or to wind down at the end of the day before I turn in.

Louis' idea of recharging himself or relaxing is to go catch a movie, exercise, go out, sleep, or do things that he doesn't have the time to do. In other words, reading was not his idea of fun, relaxation or to rejuvenate, unless you're talking about non-fiction books.

A few weeks ago, while I was nursing and reading to Faith before she turns in for the night, Louis asked if Faith would be distracted if he stayed in the room. I wasn't too sure but I told him let's try it out and see. If she gets too distracted and wants to play with him instead of following her usual bedtime rituals, he could always go out again.

Sitting on the bed while Faith and I are on the mattress on the floor next to him, he was wondering what to do to pass time in the room when he saw a copy of my J.D Robb's futuristic crime book on the headboard of our bed. He picked that up and started reading. And so begin his "love affair".

When Faith finally slept and I was ready to head out with him to the living room to watch some TV programmes like we usually do, Louis' head was still buried in the book. I asked him what he thought of the book and he said it was quite an interesting read so far. And he went on to finish the book over the next few days.

I guess this whole incident of him injuring his knee has led to a surprising discover for the both of us. There are long stretches of time every day when he's lying either on our daybed in the living room or our bed so that he can prop his feet up to relieve the swelling on his knee & ankle -- yes, it still slightly swollen. There's only so much TV programmes or thumb twiddling that he can do, while my mom, Faith & I continued with our daily routines and going to and back from classes.

Encouraged that he finished reading that book, I went to the library and borrowed a few more titles, from different authors that I read and like. Thus far, he's read books by J.D. Robb, Lee Child, James Rollin, David Baldacci & Philip Margolin. These tend to be crime, investigation or thriller types of books.

He's declared that he likes Lee Child's books the best amongst all. In fact, he can't get enough of Jack Reacher, the lead character in which all of Lee Child's books are about. So much so that he's been devouring them so quickly, some of them he's finished in a mere 2 days, that I've been going to the library on a weekly basis to return and borrow new titles.

In fact, my latest "score" for this week was 6 books, of which 4 are by Lee Child. Our library next door has limited titles and I had to venture a little further to Bishan Library cos I figured that it was newer and would have more selections. I was right :)

And so, that's how Louis and I have been spending our nights. After Faith sleeps, we continue to read in the bedroom till midnight. Some nights, like yesterday, when we are coming to the end of the book or when there are parts where the story intensifies, we stayed up until 1 am before turning in. Thankfully, Faith continues to sleep blissfully even when we have the light on.

Its a really nice feeling not to talk or chat but just sit companionably, side-by-side, reading our books in bed. I don't know what it says of us but I don't think its a sad reflection on the state of our relationship that our favourite activity now is to stay up and read our respective books.

I'm thrilled that we can now talk about the characters, plots and style of the various authors that we've both read. We're even excitedly looking forward to the library's reservation notification for when Lee Child's latest book arrives.

As for Faith... I'm glad that she loves her books and wouldn't let me skip her bedtime ritual of reading to her. Some nights, she's insistent that I read 2 books to her or she would scream and cry for me to "Read! Read!".

She's got many favourites, but I think her Mr Men and Little Miss titles are her treasured books. So much so that we've just gotten her the entire collection of Mr Men. Yup! All 46 pieces of them. Its been so difficult to find the individual characters that she loves, e.g. Mr Happy, Mr Bump and Little Miss Sunshine to match the soft toys my friend, Eileen, had gotten her for her Christmas present.

Who knows, we might just turn out to be a little family of bookworms after all :)

Towards a better Niu (Ox) Year

Quite frankly, we're not a superstitious or traditional family. As with a lot of traditions, it has been much watered down by our generation. We don't quite know things like the origins of eating dumplings (tang yuan) on Yuan Xiao Jie or staying up as late as we can on the eve of CNY. Most certainly, there's a lot of traditions that we either simply do not believe in or know about to observe.

Nonetheless, Louis and I were just browsing the emails that my elder SIL had forwarded to us recently about feng shui and/or predictions of our Chinese zodiac signs in the year of the Ox. One of the slides caught our attention.

It said that the actual first day of the lunar new year for this year falls on the calendar date of Wed, 4th Feb 09. On this day, it would be auspicious for individuals to be decked out in red, as well as to bank in some money into one's personal savings account to begin the year with a good start.

Supposedly, how the day turns out for your would set the tone for the rest of the year i.e. if the day turns out well for you, the entire would be good and vice versa.

We were jokingly telling my mom about it and I had expected her to laugh it off. To our surprise, she said very determinedly that she would come in red the next day.

For the fun of it, our little family decided that we might try to follow some of the advice given too. There's little harm in any of the things that we do, plus, one can never too much of any luck that we might get for this supposed tough year.

Hence, on Wed, I wore the reddest top that I have -- which actually is against a black background, but its the best that I can do. Louis has no clothes in red, so, he picked one of his t-shirt that had the loudest and brightest red prints on it. Faith certainly has no red clothes either, so she wore a bright pink dress with flowers for her class. I think my mom topped all of us by coming in with a bright red blouse :)

Becos I had to bring Faith for class and mornings are a mad rush for us, I'd asked my mom to bank in Faith's ang paos into her own account. On our part, Louis transferred some money from his working account to a joint savings account in our names -- we're not sure if that counts since we essentially transferring money around different accounts but its the best we can do. I told my mom to put some money into her account too but she told me she would tap her good luck from banking in money into Faith's account?!?! Oh well...

As for how the day went... hmmm.... it was nothing spectacular. Neither did anything bad happen. It was a normal, run-of-the-mill type of day. Which is not a bad thing, I gathered.

So, let's hope we'll be able to go through this year without any mishap like the last one that ended. If you're wondering what that mishap was, it was Louis' knee injury, of course :)

He is alright

Louis is safe and recuperating at home since yesterday after Fri's op.

What was supposed to be a 2-hour surgery took much longer. I thought he would be out around 6 pm, but he came out of the OT slightly after 9 pm. Managed to see his doc cum surgeon as he left the OT and he said that he was happy with the outcome of the surgery. It took longer becos the MCL, that was meant to heal on their own needed repair as well.

He needs to wear his knee brace, which is locked at a 30-degree angle at all times for the next 2 weeks. Mobility is a little of a challenge, as expected, given that his left leg is at an odd angle all the time. Thankfully, the shot that they gave to numb his leg is still effective, so he doesn't feel the pain of the surgery very much.

Appetite post surgery isn't great. He felt a little nauseous yesterday and had only liquids like Horlicks and very watery porridge. Today, he's worked up an appetite for fishball kway teow soup and fish mee sua soup for dinner.

We decided to stay home and not join the extended family for the reunion dinner since it is difficult for him to move around. Thankfully, my MIL called in the evening and came by to pick Faith up, so that she can have reunion dinner over at my in-laws' place.

Unfortunately, Faith seemed to have some slight cough in the middle of the night and early this morning. No phlegm, just coughs that seemed to clear whatever that is blocking the air passage. Just in case, I brought her to see the outpatient clinic at Raffles Medical to get standby medication since its the holiday weekend.

This would definitely go down as one of the more "memorable" CNY we ever had. Yet, we're grateful that at least, Louis is home with us.

Knee operation

The day has arrived.

We woke up as usual, around 9am. Without fail, upon being fully awaked and somewhat satiated with her morning milk, the first thing that Faith always does is to call out: “Papa...” from where she is on the floor mattress next to our bed. Then, she will somewhat drunkenly stumble around and head towards the side of the bed where her favourite person in the whole wide world is.

This morning, we had to make sure that Louis had his breakfast before 10 am, after which he was supposed to fast for the rest of the time before his operation.

I had a dream on Wed night about his operation, although I couldn’t for the life of me remembered what it was all about on waking. I only vaguely recall that I was looking at the different puncture holes on the sides of his left knee and a longer slash-line just below the knee-cap. Wonder what the dream meant, or is it just a manifestation of my thoughts on his op.

Yesterday, Louis and I went to catch the show “Inkheart”, at the movie theatre. I had recced the cinema ahead of time this week, checking with the staff if they were able to cater for movie-goers on crutches becos the one near to our home has escalators leading from the ticket floor to the movie halls, and more steps exiting at the end of the show. Thankfully, they were quite helpful.

The staff stopped the escalator so that Louis could hop onto the steps. They then turn it back on, stopping almost when we reach the top so that he could slowly hobble out. It was the reverse when we exited the show after the movie. All in, it was an experience for the both of us. At the same time, we know that watching a movie is very plausible, but not on weekends, when there’s a crowd. That would be suicidal and asking for trouble.

As I’m typing this, we’re in the hospital ward, sitting in his room, waiting for the nurses to send him to the operating theatre in another 20-30 min time. I’m sitting in the sofa at the corner of the room that would convert to become a bed at night (which my MIL would be sleeping on), with Louis reading The Straits Time on his bed. Seemingly, all is calm and there is no verbalisation of any jitters from the both of us. But I’ve got butterflies in my stomach since the time I drove him to the hospital.

Much as I would like to be able to stay the night with him, we both recognise that in this, my duty as a mother takes priority. Faith has never been away from me for a single night ever since the time of her birth. Coupled with the fact that she is now down with runny nose, and also salivating constantly since yesterday, its for both our peace of mind that I will go back home to sleep with her tonight. I will stay with Louis and only head home around 8ish pm to put Faith to bed, which probably is the time that my MIL would come over and spend the night with Louis in the room.

Originally, we had made arrangements for my mom to accompany her for her lessons at JG, but becos of her runny nose, we’ve kept her at home – she would missed out on the CNY party that the class is having.

She wasn’t too happy to see that Louis and I left in the afternoon. We didn’t tell her about the hospital and the operation – I think the info would sail over her head. I simply told her that I’m bringing her Papa to see the doctor so that he can get well soon and be able to play, dance and carry her. Again, none of this info calmed her crying. Finally, we told her that mama (my mom) would give her a Yakult if she stayed at home. To which she was of course pacified.

As I’m typing this, the nurses are outside the door, preparing to send him to the operating theatre. I’m praying that the operation and post-op recovery would go on smoothly without any further complications.

Truthfully, its still hard to see my hubby on crutches. Although its been easier since last week’s physiotherapy session when the Doc recommended that he needed to put partial weight on his left leg. However, post-op, he wouldn’t be expected to put weight on his left leg as yet becos the ligaments need time to heal and he would be wearing a brace that would keep his legs straightened.

All this means that he would have to go back to hobbling on one leg, making it very tiring as he has to exert strength to ensure his left leg does not touch the floor. He moves faster hobbling on one leg, but he’s got to rest many times. With partial weight-bearing, he moves a lot slower, but is steadier and its possible to climb up and down a few steps on the stairs.

Still, we’ve got to look on the positive side. With the surgery, it would be that much closer for him to work towards recovery and finally being able to go grocery shopping with me at NTUC that much sooner.

Sometimes in life, the only way to move forward is to look ahead and not back.

Lo Hei 2009

Its the time of the year again to herald the start of the lunar new year. Without fail, that means eating yu sheng or having Lo Hei way before the actual day, which is supposed to be on the 7th day of the CNY.

I've been seeing the sale of yu sheng on display at the sushi counter of NTUC. However, bearing in mind that my mom is a vegetarian and she would frown upon any showings of meat/fish and non-vegetarian condiments accompanying them, I had refrained from purchasing any even though I salivate and drool each time.

While at NTUC yesterday, I saw that they were selling ready-shredded carrots and radishes, along with those home DIY yu sheng boxes, that comes prepacked with all the necessary condiments and seasoning.

Hence, I happily loaded a few boxes of shredded carrots and radishes, along with a box of ready-to-go yu sheng condiments. Had a tough time choosing which brand of those ready-to-go boxes becos there were so many different ones, at different prices with just some slight variations here and there. In the end, I went with one of the cheaper ones.

At home, I happily arranged everything on the biggest serving plate that I had, while my mom was standing next to me and laughing at the size of my plate -- she said it was huge! In the end, I had the last laugh becos after piling all the vegetables and condiments together, it was just nice. Thank goodness we laid newspapers on the table, in anticipation of all the "goodies" that would make their way out as we toss the yu sheng sky high.

This year, Faith again joined us, but this time, she's more aware and curious about the big plate of "salad". She aimed and went for the crispy crackers that topped the yu sheng. While we were all trying to use our chopsticks to toss the yu sheng as high as we could go, she was busy trying to dig for those crackers with her chopsticks. Frustrated in the end (cos she doesn't know how to use the chopsticks yet), she just dug in and use her fingers to pinch the crackers from the plate to her mouth :)

Our first Lo Hei was a bit dry. It didn't come with any instructions, non any ready-packed oil. We decided to add our own after seeing that the yu sheng was a tad dry after we tossed it well.

This evening, I again went back to NTUC, buying another different brand of yu sheng condiment pack. A mid-range one this time. We'd wise up to remember to add 2 tablespoons of oil on our own before we tossed. Well, why do you know?? We all felt that the cheaper box yesterday had more flavour.

No sweat. I'll buy some more next week. Even though we won't be going out to the restaurant much after Louis' op, I'm going to make up for it by eating as much as we can before his op. Besides, with the home DIY yu sheng kit, its really easy to put it together and definitely much cheaper than if we were to eat it at any restaurants.

More updates on Louis' knee - pending knee operation

23rd January 2009 - 2 days before the Reunion Dinner & 3 days before Chinese New Year.

Its the day for Louis' operation to reconstruct his torn ligaments for his knee.

Some may wonder why he's having an operation just before CNY. It didn't quite matter to us. In fact, we prefer to have it done sooner than later. After all, with or without the op, he would still be on crutches. Mobility has been curtailed very much for him ever since the knee injury. We're not expecting to go visiting or anywhere else for that matter but staying home during the CNY.

The doctor advised that he do as much thigh exercise to build up his quadriceps (the part of the thigh just slightly above the knee) before the surgery so as to reduce the swelling and stiffness post-op.

We met up with the physiotherapist after the doctor's check up so that she could walk through and show Louis which are the exercises that would help strengthen the quad muscles and build greater range for him to be able to bend his left knee.

What used to be reflex for him to bend and straighten his knee now seems an onerous task. He was also told to start to putting about half his body weight on his left knee when he walk with the crutches instead of hopping like before.

My heart hurts to see him straining himself and pushing his limits to try to get as much exercise as he can spread out through the day.

Yet despite all the pain and sweat that its causing him, it is for the better. The new "goal" has give him a greater sense of purpose about what he can do to help himself recover faster after the surgery. Its given him a clear target to work towards and with that, greater optimism about the entire knee injury situation.

This afternoon, as I brought Faith for her twice weekly Mandarin class at JG, I dropped him off at the entrance of the Singapore Botanic Garden. He wanted the wide expanse of the pathways to practice learning how to walk and put partial weight-bearing on his left knee.

Since yesterday's physiotherapy session, he's been practising whenever he can lying down to draw his left knee up to about 90 degrees with his feet resting on the flat surface. Additionally, he's also try to push down as hard as he can with his knee when his leg is straightened. These were all the exercises that the physiotherapist had shown him to do.

Assuming no further complications, he would only need to be hospitalised for 1 night and be discharged the next day. The doctor was very optimistic and confident that Louis would be able to enjoy his reunion dinner and celebrate CNY. We gather he used the word celebrate very loosely to mean that at least he wouldn't need to be in the hospital.

Whatever it is, we're all praying that the surgery would go well, there wouldn't be any further complications post-op and that with hard work, perseverance and care, he would be able to recover swiftly. From all that he's read online, patience appears to be a virtue and criteria as well.

We never thought this would apply to us. Well... not at our current age. But, we've applied and successfully gotten a Class 2 Disabled Parking Label. With his crutches, Louis definitely needs more space to get in and out of the car. Proximity to entrances is also necessary as it can be taxing to use the crutches and walk for long distances.

We currently applied for Class 2 Parking Label as either myself or my FIL will now drive the car. When Louis is better able to drive, we'll change the label to a Class 1, which means the vehicle is driven by the ones with disability or mobility issues.

Updates on Louis' knee

We went back to the doctor yesterday for his routine weekly check-up until the operation, which is likely to take place just before the CNY.

Met up with Eileen for lunch since her office is just opposite Raffles Hospital. On our way up to the clinic after lunch, we met a doctor in the lift who enquired about how Louis sustained his knee injury. He was a little surprised that he hurt it while playing badminton, instead of contact sports as he had originally thought.

As we split off in different directions on the same floor, the doctor casually asked if I was Louis' sister, cos he said we looked very alike. Hahaha... :)

This week, his swelling is still present although it has gone down quite a bit. There's still some discoloration around the knob of his left ankle, which was to be expected.

His doctor did a check on his knee before he started to explained a little about the upcoming surgery.

Technically, Louis is medically known to have dislocated his knee, as more than 2 of his ligaments were torn (he torn 3). In most cases, people would only have torn either the ACL or PCL. In such situations, the doctors would typically extract a tendon from the other uninjured knee area to help join the torn ligament together during the operation.

Louis, unfortunately torn both ligaments, making it insufficient to rely on extracting his own tendon to aid in the repair. Hence,his doctor shared that when the time for surgery comes, he would be ordering in tendons from the US. I had to ask him somewhat incredulously if that meant that the tendons were from human beings. His reply was that it was, but these donors were "no longer living". However, he went on to assured us that there is strict quality controls, processes and protocols to ensure these harvested tendons are safe and legal for use.

I had mixed reactions hearing that cos there might be complications arising from the use of these tendons. On the other hand, it beats extracting it from Louis' other knee area cos if it required surgery to extract it, wouldn't he be wheelchair-bound after the op??!!

Anyways, the doctor again assured us that there is very little risk of rejection from donated tendons (0.1%), but he said there would definitely be reactions to these tendons. It could be swelling or in worse situations, there might be pus, which would require some extraction through injection of sorts.

We jokingly asked if he was trying to protect us by spreading the series of bad news over the weeks instead of telling it to us all in one time. He was somewhat amused and laughed. But he felt that if he were to share everything with us, it would be too much for us to absorb. Well... he certainly has a good point there.

At next week's appointment, he would share more with us about possible complications arising from the surgery.

Its expected that post-op, Louis would still be on crutches for another 4 weeks, before he can slowly start to put some weight on his left leg towards the 5th and 6th week. It would be a good six months before he could run, and is encouraged to pursue straight-line sports e.g. swimming, jogging etc versus sports that requires the knees to have sudden lateral movements in the future.

I was asking the doctor if the injury was partly due to normal wear and tear over the years, instead of the one-off injury. His assessment was that it was a one-off accident and that Louis might have landed rather awkwardly to injury his knee so badly. In the doctor's own words, he said, "Its the worst badminton injury that I've come across. In fact, it is like a traffic accident injury."

I didn't know whether I should laugh or cry upon hearing that. Sigh...

An inconvenient truth

I don't know where and how to start on this post. Should I explain where I left off from the last post, with all the to-ings and fro-ings or should I just cut to the chase and tell what was the latest diagnosis?

On reflection and for the sake of friends who are reading this, I shall take the longer route to explain.

Let's get to where we left off about Louis having to go for review on New Year's Eve. After the visit to CGH A&E, he was referred to the Sports Clinic of the hospital. An earlier x-ray of his knee showed that there was no bone fracture, which was supposed to be a good thing becos a bone fracture takes a longer period to recover. To determine more conclusively the extent of his injuries, there was a need for him to go through a MRI.

Unfortunately, the earliest date that he could go for a MRI was on 14 Jan, which was 2 weeks away. Another further 2 weeks was required for the report to be out. In essence, it would be a good one month before he would be able to know where the specific injuries were located.

In the meantime, he was given 1 month of medical leave from work and was expected to be using the crutches to aid his movement during the interim.

It was a rather frustrating and discouraging result for both of us. What made it most difficult was having to wait so long without knowing how serious his injuries were. And becos they could not pinpoint the seriousness of the injury, physiotherapy was also not recommended. Not knowing and the inability to take any action makes the entire situation a little difficult to bear.

Thankfully, Louis received a timely email from his boss with a recommendation to seek a second opinion with another orthopedic surgeon from Raffles Hospital. As the swelling has spread downwards from his knee to his ankle and foot, we decided to consult the outpatient clinic there on New Year's day and also request for a referral to the orthopedic surgeon, Dr Lim Lian Arn.

Therein lies the difference between a public hospital and a private one. Understandably, queues in a public hospital tend to be a little longer as it is subsidised. It's all economics.

We were able to speedily get an appointment to see Dr Lim on Fri when we called for an appointment on New Year's day. And the all important MRI that would shed light on the extent of his injury was scheduled for the same day, with the results out some 45 mins after the MRI scan.

This was what we understand of the situation -there are 4 main ligaments in the knee; the ACL, MCL , PCL and LCL (see here for pictorial diagram and explanations). In Louis' case, 3 out of the 4 main ligaments were torn. Only the LCL, the ligament that gives support to his outer knee was intact. In addition, there was another water capsule (don't exactly know what that is or its function) that had burst. The water capsule was important for some insertion of scope to aid in the surgery.

So, while he definitely requires an operation for his knee, it was not possible at this juncture to do so as we have to wait for the water capsule to repair itself, which would take 3 weeks. Between now and then, Louis would be required to go in to check with Dr Lim on a weekly basis on the condition of his knee.

For now, he should not try to do any lifting or exerting, which includes trying to stand or put weight on his left knee. We also bought a knee brace that covers from the upper top thighs to the calf.

In short, that means that Louis will be home-bound for a while to come (around 1-2 months, hopefully?). The crutches do assist him in moving around but it is not easy as he has to use his thigh muscles to lift his left leg off the ground all the time, making it rather exhausting for him to go anywhere. Even going down to the steak house just next to our block, less than 50 metres away, would require him to take 1 or 2 short intervals in between to rest his arms and leg.

In all this, we are trying very hard to see the silver lining in the whole situation, although we haven't quite figure out what it is. Nonetheless, we are thankful that at least the remaining ligament was not torn -- else, it would have meant his entire left knee was dislocated, whatever that might mean. The other being that although this injury was no small matter, at least it wasn't life-threatening.

Louis, being the positive man that he is, considers the entire situation to be one of inconvenience - to him and everyone else in the family and at work. The pessimist in me is trying hard to be an optimist, thankful and not ask rhetoric question like "why did this happen to him/us".

It is really great that we had strong support and encouragement from our family. My elder BIL was called upon 1 day after his return from a 4-month overseas job stint to help drive Louis to the hospital 3 days in a row. My elder SIL called every other day to see if I required any help or grocery shopping for our meals. My in-laws helped us to take care of Faith during the holiday break, giving us some time to breathe and take a rest. My mom, unfortunately had to take care of another important family matter that cropped up on the same day that Louis sustained his knee injury and was away until yesterday. Louis and I were very grateful when she finally came in :)

Of course, we need to share how our dear daughter has been adjusting to her beloved Papa's injury. We think she might have an inkling of what's happening. She no longer asks for Louis to carry her, although she occasionally still asks him to dance with her when she's excited about her favourite shows like Hi-5 or Elmo. Once, she brought him the plastic mat, which was actually one of her toy, which we improvised and use to catch dripping water from the cold compress.

We have also shifted back to our master bedroom. Faith now sleeps on the floor on her own for the better part of the night. I alternate between sleeping on our own bed and going down to pat or soothe her back to sleep when she wakes up in the middle of the night - unfortunately, I'm not one of those mothers who are lucky enough to have a child that sleeps through the night.

We are taking each day as it comes, and adjusting our routine and lives to accommodate this "slight inconvenience" for as long as it takes till the day that Louis would be able to walk on his own without the aid of the crutches.

It seems like an eternity for now, but I'm sure there's a moral to be learnt of this incident. Not lest this: we always talk about taking the little things for granted - nothing brings home that message more clearly than when one comes close to losing it. For 2009, we are looking forward to the time when we can go grocery shopping in NTUC together again :)

Merry Christmas & A Happy Birthday

Christmas holds a very special meaning in our family, not becos we are Christians. The date of 25th Dec is always reserved for the family. A time to celebrate and get-together.

It is the day that Louis was born some thirty-odd years ago :)

Being the family man that he is, Louis is happiest when we spend his special day surrounded by family, having a home-cooked meal. Frankly, it doesn't matter to him very much if it was a simple meal, or one that we order in.

Last year, he tolled and slaved over a Christmas turkey. It was the first time that he made it for me and the family after years of pestering on my part. We oohed-ahhed over the gorgeous, succulent and moist bird that came out from our oven and promptly attacked it with relish. So much so that we forgot to take a picture of it for the blog.

This year, we decided to do away with the turkey. And so, I stepped forth and set out to prepare the entire Christmas meal, complete with a Birthday/Christmas Buche de Noel (log cake), the very first cake that I ever made for him.

I was very determine to make him his birthday cake this year as I'm now a SAHM without income. It seemed senseless to me to buy him a birthday present with his own money :)

Apart from our immediate family, a couple of his aunties, an uncle and cousins joined us again (they were with us last Christmas too). It was a bit of a challenge trying to cook a 5-course meal to feed a crowd of 14-15 people, while getting to enjoy ourselves too. We could have pot-luck or order some of the food in. However, I'm a little of a perfectionist when it comes to such gatherings and prefer to prepare all the food for the gathering on my own.

The Christmas menu comprised of a starter of Vietnamese fresh spring rolls (Goi Cuon), with beef stew and crab meat pasta as the mains. We topped that off with the log cake and green-tea tiramisu.

My elder BIL is unfortunately still overseas for work. The good news is that he would be home in time to celebrate the turn of the new year. That would be yet another reason for the family to celebrate.

Thanks to the the aunties, who came loaded with chocolates from their European vacation and a casserole of baked rice, and my elder SIL, who bought some sushi and Korean strawberries, there was more than enough food to go around. As usual :)

Our Christmas tree was also spilling with lots of Christmas presents, not only for ourselves, but along with presents for the 2As too.

As for Faith, she was happy to run around, socialise and alternated between following and bossing around her 2 older cousins all over the house.

It has been a simple but blessed Christmas cum Birthday celebration for us. It means a lot to Louis and I that we are able to have the extended family spend the festive season with us. This is the warmth and love of family that we hope that Faith will continue to be surrounded with as she grows to learn to appreciate it as much as we do.

Little Family's Bintan Trip: 6th - 8th Dec 2008

In all seriousness, I don't suppose there's much sense putting a post about how we spent our 3D2N trip in Bintan during the Hari Raya Haji holiday weekend. Afterall, I'm sure many people know what there is or isn't to do in Bintan. Plus, it wasn't our first trip there.

I suppose I shall let the pictures do all the talking. Suffice it to say it was a somewhat eventful start on the morning of our trip when Faith woke up with her legs filled with rashes. Turns out that she had hives.

It was a mad scramble to get her to see the paedi, and liaising with our travel agent to change our departure time (we have to say that Fascinating Travels, as always, provided excellent services) to a later slot -- we were scheduled to depart at 12 noon.

So, we had our share of fun on the beach, building (with Faith destroying) sandcastles, swimming, eating and doing pretty much nothing else at a beach resort. Just the kind of holiday that I like with a kid on hand.

Another thing... I would think twice about travelling on a ferry during a monsoon season next time. The water was extremely choppy and I very nearly puked on board the ferry. Never happened to me ever before.

I) On feeding - Faith self-feeds only for food she likes e.g. chawanmushi & ice-cream

II) Blowing bubbles - Every kid loves them, Faith included. Although she kinda like to hang the device around her neck and walk around the resort with it.

III) Pretending to suntan - weather was dreary and overcast the day that we were due to depart. No matter, for posterity's sake, Faith is happy to pose for the camera, except that she's not in her swimming costume.

IV) Collage galore - That's why its called collage galore... a mix-match of different pictures.

V) "Almost sisters" - Lo and behold, 2 girls in pink at the reception lobby; one's on her way home to Singapore and the other on her way in from Singapore. Uncannily alike in their pink tops, hair style and size. Just about a month apart in age.

The man in my live & making a will

[This has been in my draft box for a few days]

The news over the last few days have been rather sombre and bleak, especially with the tragic death of fellow Singaporean, Lo Hwei Yen, in the Mumbai massacre. It made me ponder about life, about how fragile and transient it can be. And somewhere in my mind, I would think about how her husband is coping.

It may sound weird, crazy and stupid. Yet, do you ever stop to think every once in a while what would happen to yourself if someone that you have always relied on is one day no longer around? I do. And when that question surfaces, I invariability chicken out and shove it to the back of my brains.

However, coming on the heels of our 5th year anniversary, I just wanted Louis why he means the world to me and not to regret that I've not let him know.

Now and then, I would jokingly tell him that I provide him with directions in life. In truth, he's the compass and the pillar of support in my life. A friend, soulmate, lover, husband and father, all rolled into a nice neat package. One who knows what makes me tick and who keeps me ticking.

He's the hands-on father who loves openly, plays, tumbles and acts silly with Faith. He brushes her teeth, cleans her face, changes her into her jammies, plays with her every night so that I can take a shower and get ready to nurse and put Faith to bed.

He embraced and relish fatherhood much earlier and with greater enthusiasm than I did for motherhood. Which is probably why she's so much a daddy's girl. She wakes up every morning and more often than not, she would lean over the side of the bed and say "Papa", regardless of whether he's there or not.

He would be the first person that I want to share my joys, fears, frustrations, happiness, trepidations and whatever range of emotions and feelings I've ever experienced since meeting him. The one whom I want to share all the important milestones, not important milestones and everything in between.

As a husband, he is caring, loving, trusting, respectful, honest, selfless, open, fun, silly, indulgent. We have our arguments, spats and petty fights, of course. But we talk it out and not let it fester. We share similar values, beliefs and outlooks in life.

Yet, I think he makes a better husband than I make a wife. I am hotheaded to his calming, even temperament. Tactless when he is the soul of tact, pessimistic while he is almost always optimistic, impatient when he is mostly patient. The list could go on, but I fear that would make me sound like a not-very-nice person :)

Despite all these, he continues to love me for my good and accepts me for my flaws. I cannot ask for a better husband or a better father.

In my ideal world, we would be old and dotty some 40-50 years from now, walking hand-in-hand in the park, while our hoards of grandchildren and our children with their spouses are strolling together with us.

Yet, the ideal world and reality is not the same. The world as we know it is not the same as it was.

And that is the second and more worrisome thought. Reading all these tragic news on the papers conjure unpleasant thoughts of what would happen to Faith if one day, something were to happen to both Louis and I before she is financially independent and able to take care of herself.

It scares me to think that we would not be there to witness her growth and all the important/significant milestones of her life. Yet, it scares me more to think that should that remote possibility ever occurs, we did not make provisions for her.

So, I said to Louis that perhaps it is also time that we seriously think about making a will. Not becos we have much assets to distribute. But to ensure that someone would be able to execute our wishes and intentions on our behalves if we no longer could. Someone to take on the responsibility of her until she is able to do so for herself. It would greatly simplify all the processes and possible situations instead of relying on intestate law.

It may sound morbid, yet, I think it is an important aspect to gravely consider now that we are parents.

Louis asked me "how do we go about doing it?" when I mentioned about making a will. I have no other beyond the fact that we need a lawyer to get it done.

Its time to take stock and to do something about it. There's probably a few things we would have to consider. Do we make individual wills as well? What instructions do we want to leave behind? Whom do we appoint as an executor? Do we need to do a stock-take of our current financials?

I don't know where we should start but we do need to start somewhere.

So, maybe this could be our task for the coming year? A new year resolutions of sorts.

Ramblings in the wee hours of the morning

I've been part lazy and part busy that I've not spent much time logging onto the laptop these days, to talk about having any new post.


Weekends are two days of the week in which I absolutely do not log on unless for rare reasons. I spent them with Louis, having some couple time, run errands, having dinner with families, friends etc.


Weekdays are not any better. To maximise and optimise our time, we'd decided to not jostle with the majority of working Singaporeans in the supermarket doing our weekly grocery shopping on weekends. Instead, I now grocery shop for the entire week every Monday, when the supermarkets are largely empty and I do not have to stand in line in long queues to make payment.


Wednesdays through Fridays, I bring Faith for her classes at LG and JG. Which leaves me with Tuesday afternoons free. Becos I've been a little too liberal charging to my credit card for the last few months, I've been bleeding from the nose paying for my monthly bills come that time of the month.


Thus, I've decided to spend my only free afternoon of the week doing activities that hopefully does not involve money. For the last one month, that involved going to the library next door to borrow books and browse through the cookbooks section. Each time, I can spend up to 3 hours or even more in the library. Imagine that? Three hours spent doing things that I like for FREE.


The good news is that my eyes wouldn't bulge out of its sockets when I next check my credit card bill online. The flip side is that I hardly find much time with all the things that I am doing to turn on my computer. Plus, if I'm not busy with all of the above, I'm either in the kitchen cooking or vegetating in the living room with part of my attention on the TV watching Korean dramas/serials and entertaining and picking up after Faith.


Given the mess she leaves behind each time she enters and leaves any part of the house, I'm starting to think I should nickname her "Hurricane Faith" - toys strewed and splayed out on the floor, DVDs/VCDs thrown every which way, kitchen cabinets opened with contents spilling out etc.

So there you have it! I've finally found time to put up a post at the ungodly hour of 3 AM in the morning becos I'm suffering from my usual insomnia. Instead of staring up blankly at the ceiling or worse, counting sheep, I thought I'll do something useful.

Now that that little bit of update about myself has been said and done, let's move on to my daughter.

Hmmm.... as we all know, Faith's a late walker and a late talker. She's still not doing a lot of talking these days. If she does, its mainly one syllabus words. For the last few weeks, she's slowly but steadily opening up her vocal chords and trying to get herself to pronounce certain words.

Her repertoire of words are yes, no, mama, papa, ye-ye, nai-nai, chest, nose, more, cheers, bye, wah (Singlish which I'm trying to get her to say "wow" instead), toes, nuts (she pronounce it as "nuzz"). Not a lot although she's definitely picking up more each day. Her favourite word is of course "no". That she uses for different purposes and situations.

She was stirring from her sleep just now and as I was entering the room, I could hear her say distinctively: "No-no-no". No idea what she was saying no to though.

In the mornings, as I tussle with her whether or not she should shower or bath in the bathtub, she would grab her bathtub in a dead grip and if I try to wrestle it away from her, she would scream and cry persistently: "No-no-no-no-no...". The reason why I rather shower her than to put her in the bathtub is that nine out of ten times, I would have to haul her wet, slippery body out, struggling not to drop her as she kicks and screams bloody murder for pulling her out of water.

Don't be shocked... I really find it funny and even look forward to the times when she says "no. Her "no" is kinda cute. She wouldn't say it with the curt finality that most toddlers would say it with. Instead, her "No" ends very softly, with her stretching her "o" such that it sounds more like the word "know".

I think she's starting to move on to string more words together. Again this morning while she was in her bathtub, I had left her Barney VCD show running on the TV. She was watching it halfway when I'd told her to go and take a bath. Halfway through her bath, the show ended and the TV switch from DVD/VCD mode to normal TV channel. Faith looked up at me and said "no more".

I was surprised. It was the first time she uttered anything more than one syllabus. Of course, when I asked her to repeat it again, she just smiled at me. At night, as we got ready for her to go to sleep, she said "bye-bye" to Louis when she's only said "bye" so far.

In no time, she'd probably be stringing together words to form proper sentences. And I think I would miss her at this stage. I really love this period when she's not able to speak and enunciate her words properly and that they are mainly monosyllabic.

Sigh...its the usual parental dichotomy that I'm facing. Do I or do I not want my little baby to grow up? Do I want to freeze this particular moment in time when I'm having so much fun with her or let her grow up and amaze me even more with each and every step of her growth and learning?

Dinners

It would be great if all dinners that we held could be like the one we had yesterday.

Minimum time was spent in the kitchen preparing the 4-course dinner of:

- Vietnamese summer rolls (Gui Cuon)

- Avocado & tofu salad

- Chorizo sandwich

- Macha jelly, azuki beans & ice-cream

We pre-prepared nearly everything beforehand leading to the dinner. I only took less than 10 minutes to grill the chorizos as everyone were helping themselves to the salad and the summer rolls.

Even though one of the gang couldn't make it becos she was rushing to finish reading some 200 CVs, the 6 of us managed to finish all the food on the table meant for 7 persons.

Louis and I had to take turns entertaining Faith throughout the dinner. Still, Faith was on home ground and while it would be a long time before she turns into a good little host, she behaved fairly well throughout dinner.

For these same reasons, Louis and I prefer hosting dinners these days at home rather than to go outside for dinner with friends. Even though we still have to take turns eating and entertaining our little girl, at least, we are within earshot of the conversations.

The night before, we had dinner with Louis' colleague at his wife at Morton's of Chicago @ The Oriental Hotel, sans kids. Since we were all parents ourselves, we unanimously agreed to have our dinner at 6.30 pm.

As we chatted and ate our dinner, we all took turns to look at our watches inconspicuously. When the dessert took some time to show up, neither couples were embarrassed that one of us went forward to request the kitchen to hurry our order.

We all understood that we needed to reach home by 9.30 pm to put our kids to bed.

When dessert was served, we ate quickly, called for the bill and then each made our way home, glancing at our watches still with each set of parent making a call home to check if our kids were doing fine.

It would have seemed almost unimaginable and stark crazy that we would fork out so much to dine at a place like Morton's and not take time to eat and enjoy ourselves. That lifestyle of fine dinning and degustation type of meals that last at least 3 hours or more now seem so foreign with parenthood, as if it was something that happened in our past lives.

Truthfully, we did enjoy our meal. We were just more conscious about the amount of time we spent out and we wanted to balance some couple time with our personal desires to put our kids to bed ourselves.

I guess that's the trade-off of parenthood.

At the end of the day, reaching home and seeing Faith break into a huge smile, coupled with the smacking kisses that she doles out before bedtime makes all the trade-offs worthwhile.

London haul

What makes a married man & a father different on business trips is the speed in which each trip is conducted - the "quick in-quick out" type of business travels. If one had to be gone slightly longer than his preferred modus operandi, then, one would essentially be plagued with guilt.

Lots of guilt.

So much so that one would go on a guilt-buy to make up for time away from home :)

Louis was away the last week in London for training. Of course, yours truly here would forever have a list of things for him to bring back, seeing that we had limited luggage space on our last trip. Additionally, some things are perishable, so, there's only so much you can bring back.

Faith had the largest haul of stash that her daddy bought for her becos he disliked the time apart from her, even though it was a short one week trip away.

Since she's still not quite at the stage where she's able to hold a conversation with him over the phone, you can bet that he missed her a lot more than he did his wife ;)

To be fair, while she did not held up her end of the conversation, she enjoyed hogging my cellphone when Louis called. She would plaster it to her ears and scream if we tried to take it away from her. Louis kind of had to maintain a one-sided conversation the entire time. She would just smile into the phone and it takes lots of coaxing before she would even utter shyly "Papa", if at all.

Thankfully, she's capable of giving smacking kisses and she gave that willingly over the phone, bringing the cellphone to her mouth and giving it a smacking and resounding kiss whenever we told her to kiss Louis goodbye.

Aside from the many clothes and a set of Speedo swimming costume that Louis bought for her, he also hauled back a few Green & Blacks chocolate bars, 2 canister of cocoa powder (these were about 1/3 the price of a canister sold at NTUC Finest), chorizo sausages, organic sweet potato chips, organic prunes, nuts and a few other sauces.

The most precious thing that he brought back for me was the third series of Gordon Ramsay's "The F Word" DVD. Yippee!!!

As for the chorizos, some folks are going to be treated to chorizo sandwiches over the Hari Raya Puasa public holiday on Wednesday. That is if I don't screw up the simple process of cooking it!