Week 38, Day 3 Gynae Visit

29th December marks my 38th week gynae visit. Hubby had some activity at Sentosa, so I asked my sister and mum to go for the gynae appointment with me.

The little gal happened to have fever and we decided to bring her to see Dr Ang Ai Tin at TMC. While waiting for her turn at the PD, the little gal goes to my gynae clinic and gets to see baby on the ultrasound for the very first time. ;)

During the appointment, Dr Tseng confirmed that: baby is already head down & decending (but it does not mean labor will come soon), baby is facing the side of my tummy, baby's heartbeat is 155 and estimated weight is 3.1kg... No vaginal examination was conducted and he expects that this baby would arrive at about the same
number of weeks/days as my first.

After the appointment and PD visit, little gal followed my mum home while me and little sis shopped for the outstanding baby items - long pants/ towels/medela pump parts/new nursing bras and little gal's white school socks!

Ending off with the ultrasound photo... Can you see baby's face?

Pregnancy & Food...

A lot of friends who were pregnant more than once shared with me about how "bo-chup" (care-less) they were about the food they ate during their subsequent pregnancies. I guess I am no different from them... :p

The diet preference for the 2 pregnancies were fairly different. I suffered mild symptoms of morning sickness for #2 and lost about 2 kg during my 1st trimster. Hubby also did not control the diet of my #2 as much as the first (because I told him the restricted diet made little gal a small eater... LOL).

#1 perfered savoury food stuff, green leafy vegetable and anything spicy and sour (yes, tom yum topped my list). I only ate "Asian cusine" and largely avoided "Western food". The only craving I had for #1 (which was never acceded to, was tom yum instant noodles- hubby was insistent! NO instant noodles- bleah!).

While #2 has no objections to "savoury stuff", I tend to suffer a lack of or zero appetite if the food came in spicy and oily (read spicy minced meat noodles). No cravings for instant noodles but #2 seem to have a sweet tooth! While I controlled sugar in my tea, I could not resist cravings for sweet stuff! The difference with #2 was in terms of the cravings I had...

During the 2nd trimster, I just could not get waffles with ice-cream out of my mind. Hubby was not only suprised (since I would usually not ask to eat waffles with ice cream) but very happy to oblige since it is his favourite dessert!

The other sweet cravings I have were:
Durian and soy beancurd. It was strange since I was quite reluctant to take both during #1. This time round I would tell hubby - "See, durians for sale. Buy leh, I want to eat...". Anyway, I only asked for durians twice. :p

Soy beancurd was a sudden thought that came to mind. Maybe a reminence of "pak-tor" days where we visted Yong He to eat the 油条 and soy beancurd. Each time we had 飞飞云吞面 at Joo Chiat, I would request to have beadcurd.

The last and perhaps strangest craving I had was for 点心 and in particular 凤爪. Yup strange indeed, but it was always at the back of my mind and a must order if I ever had tim sum.

Happy Birthday!

The little gal is turning four this year. Since it's the last birthday as an only child, this birthday celebration was kind of special and I made it a point to start planning early.

She wanted a "princess" birthday party due her (over)exposure of Disney DVD cartoons like Cinderella, Rapunzel, Beauty and the Beast, Little Mermaid and Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs. For some reason, she loves Snow White the most. The theme then evolved from "Princesses" to "Snow White".

I started my search for the cake topper about 5 months prior but could not find one that could make me go "OK! This is the one!". In early November, the frenzy started since figurines/toppers from US Disney would take some time to reach Singapore. I then sought help from a colleague to see if she knew where I could get decent toppers (not those where Snow White has small slits for her eyes). Well, I finally found one sold on the SMH forum!

Two weeks before the "birthday party", another frenzy  moment took place as we hunted for THE birthday cake design. Hubby felt that a "garden theme" cake would go with the topper and sure enough, it did!

Then it was on to the ding-dong-ing back and forth with Pine Garden (via email) for the design of the cake. Seriously email is surely the most inefficient manner of doing it, so many thanks to hubby, who went down to Pine Garden with our "sweat & tears" art work to place the order. Pine Garden does not do Disney themed cakes so they decorated the cake according to my request and I placed the topper on my own after that.

The teachers and children "Oooooooo-ed" and "Uhhhhhhhh-ed" over the cake. We ordered a 2kg Hazelnut Chocolate Crunch cake and it was moist and soft!  The children were particularly enchanted by the blue cream (yes, can you believe it?), edible lady bugs, strawberries, flowers, snails and of course the fondant words that read Happy 4th Birthday Nicole.

Now, let's just allow the photos to do the talking... :)




The Birthday Cake! :)



More shots with the bright and cherry "Snow White & 7 Dwarf" birthday cake.
 

The family shot :)



Kiddos surrounding the cake and little gal blowing out the candle.

 

Cutting the cake and having a HUGE SLICE of the cake! :)

 



Aloha Loyang Chalet (art & craft on Day 1 & 2)

This is the second year 4 families come together for an R&R weekend at the Aloha Loyang chalet during the December school holidays. This time round we stayed at Bungalow 14. The condition of this chalet was worse than the previous and was quite a distance from the swimming pool. The only perk is that the unit was facing the sea (so it was windy) and there is a mango tree outside which was bearing lots of fruits! :)

This time round, two mummies prepared some craft material for the kids to entertain themselves during the chalet. There were 2 toddlers (including little gal) and 2 older children. Doing crafts entertains the kids and doing it at the chalet takes away lots of stress (translate to: no worries about the sand all over the floor or paint on your precious furniture/wall). The best part is seeing all 4 kids enjoying themselves!

There were other things which the kids did like painting the sea creature coaster and "free hand" doodling/drawing which were not captured on photos.

But here are some pictures captured of the children in action!

Day 1: Little gal doing foam art with another little gal (who turns out to be her best friend throughout this entire chalet!)



Day 2: Batik Painting all around! All serious at work... :)

Everyone "flashing" their work of art... and laying them out to dry outside the chalet

 

All posing with their art pieces! All very pretty isn't it? *Well done!*



Two mummies helping their gals with the "Glow-in-the-dark" sand art pieces! (PS: The messy messy SUPER messy but super fun craft! Most fun to do at Chalet cos even if the sand spills, the parents can still chill!)

The little gal with her finished piece!

 

Hubby helped the kids "sun" the glow in the dark sand & all the kids went into the room to see the "glowing" art work. Quite impressed that the glow in the dark sand really "glows". LOL!

Red Rhino in "action"...

Came home from grocery shopping to find the car park fire alarm triggered and ringing away. Shortly after parking the car, a red rhino was despatched to scene. While the fire-fighters checked out if there was a real fire, they parked the Red Rhino at the shelter.

Such a rare opportunity! So took the chance to let the little gal have some "close look" at the vehicle... Technically it is a "fast response" vehicle for small fire incidences. But too complex for me to explain it to her. In the end, she calls it a "mini-fire engine".

The fire fighters were of course amused by our "suaku-ness" since we asked little gal to take a photo with the Red Rhino. They must be wondering if this extreme mother will put the little gal behind the wheels for another photo (worrying since the engine was on and none of the official personnel was in that vehicle...). :p