.jpg)
.jpg)
Even though I'll be getting/using loads of things from my Sis/Simon/Marianne when in Singapore, we figured things like a bath tub can/should be bought in China, instead of being lugged all the way back from Singapore in March. My mum's advice for a bath tub was that we "no need to buy such a fancy one lah!", and she thought the SGD12 we spent was slightly too expensive at that! We got an 82cm one (should last Rosabelle till she's taller/older/bigger), and chose one with rubber grips by the side. Wayne purposely wanted a brightly-coloured one, and there was nothing we could do about the disturbing wrong English printed on the base of the tub (what on earth does 'Wi Mr. Bcan Clob' mean???)...We brought some local colleagues, along with a colleague from our Singapore office, Adeline, for Singapore food at Lau Pa Sat restaurant on Saturday night, and thereafter headed for ice-cream at Cold Stone Creamery.
On Sunday, we headed to Tim and Van's house for a good round of home-cooked food that included heavenly chicken curry with toasted french toast (yummy!!!).
Last night, Tim and Van joined us as we brought Adeline to another nice Chinese restaurant (那家小馆) for dinner. Van got me an early birthday gift, to no doubt spur me back into sexiness (wahahaha! I... must... perservere... and shake off my fats accumulated during pregnancy!) --
They also wrapped an early angpow for Rosabelle (to be opened when she is born) - thank you to Uncle Tim and Aunty Van!
We then adjourned for desserts and wine at W Dine and Wine (standard of desserts have dropped...so sad...).
Enjoyed the company and look forward to seeing Tim and Van when they head back to Singapore over CNY next year so our daughters can meet for the first time! (Though Van still strongly feels she is expecting a boy..heh...we'll see, we'll see, so exciting!).
On my last two nights, there will still be more serious chomping as today, we'll go Outback Steakhouse together (just us both, as we enjoy some together time and my early 'birthday cake' from Awfully Chocolate - courtesy of my company that has gotten cakes instead of mooncakes for staff for the mid-Autumn Festival). Tomorrow, we'll be meeting an ex-colleague couple for yet another dinner... BURP.
In case you think it's all fun, food, and drinks, I've been working hard at home too, going through all the rooms and cupboards to (i) throw away anything that is useless/expired (e.g. cooking oil we bought from two years ago and have used less than 5 tablespoons!) (ii) rearrange things so that we can make full use of the space for Wayne's Mum and Rosabelle's things when we are all back next year (iii) clean/wash anything that are mites/dust hoarders (e.g. sending mats for cleaning, washing plush toys lying around (iv) do up a list for Wayne to continue the housework action when I'm away (haha... he still needs stuff around the house and will need to send them for cleaning when he heads back to his hometown, Zhengzhou, in end-September so they can be ready for collection when he comes back to Beijing before heading to join me in Singapore in early-October)...
I'm done with most of the housework already, and have more or less already packed my bag for Singapore - just fingers crossed that Wayne's work visa stuff gets sorted sooner rather than later!
Of course, I've been rewarding myself with facial, manicure/pedicure sessions, and it helps that with quite alot of rains these days (was raining whole day yesterday), the weather is nice and cool for us. And Rosabelle has been so active these days it's quite hilarious to see my tummy heave from side to side at times - there was once I even felt her head bulge out, and patted her on her head, so cute... But it's not so cute when I at times stay awake for up to two hours in the middle of the night from being "kicked around" (it's also me being worried that her kicking means she is being uncomfortable...so I have to shift positions like every other 5 minutes...)
Well, it's likely the next update is after I am safely in Singapore (my flight's this PM on Friday, and Wayne's sending me off, where we can enjoy a Burger King lunch at Beijing's ONLY BK outlet...haha!). Looking forward to homecoming!
Looking at the various websites and liaising with the various entities (Singapore embassy in China, Chinese embassy in Singapore, Ministry of Manpower, Immigrations & Checkpoints Authority... and being put on hold for a full 15 minutes before I got to speak to a non-machine for the last one).
Do the government leaders in both countries know what they are talking about when they say they welcome foreign talent, or when Singapore talks about attracting Singaporeans back home (without their foreign spouses, maybe)?
Not to mention the amount of forms we need to fill in, the different visits we need to make, and the trees we are killing with the amount of paperwork (copy+original blah blah blah) we need to submit.
Enough. Grrr.
Yikes, I was so conscious of my sleeping position last night as I wanted to make sure I wasn't hurting Rosabelle! However, it's been really uncomfortable sleeping flat on my back now (which I have to do when doing simple stretching exercises) - I can feel my chest area becoming heavy (NOT to be confused with being heavy-chested), and feeling short of breath.
We also did our last ultrasound of Rosabelle in China at the check-up yesterday (no photos this time round as our girl's face was closely adhered to the placenta, and she refused to face the screen, haha!). But according to the doctor, everything is in order, and she is actually bigger than predicted by my LMP - calculating with the latter, she should be 29 weeks 4 days old, but according to her size, she is a full 6 days ahead at 30 weeks 2 days. Wowee... she is growing fast and strong, attagirl!
She now weights 1,464 grammes (how cute is that?!), and doctor also remarked that the length of her thigh, at 6 cm (how cute is that as well?!) is quite long - good girl, go take after Daddy's height! We also caught sight of a sequence of her opening and clutching her fingers closed (think the action you do when singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Stars')... (again, how cute is that?!).Well, Rosabelle and I have been given a clean bill of health to get on a plane in two weeks' time, and we also made copies of our case file so that I can share with the doctor back in Singapore. Thank goodness I've been rigorously taking my own notes after each session, so it's a case of summarizing key findings/concerns (or I'd just faint from having to translate all the medical reports/terminologies from Chinese into English!).
After the check-up, we went for a magnifique, oh-so-wonderful lunch at WISH restaurant in the area (slightly pricey by China standards, yes - about SGD60 for two persons), but our ordering of a divine pumpkin/cod soup (below pic) + beef (below pic) + mashed tofu + kailan + cheese dumplings + signature chocolate cake was all... so.... good. Yummy... and it helps that the service was good (attentive, but not imposing - i.e. not the kinds that whip your plates from under your nose when you are putting that last morsel of food into your mouth), and the ambience was nice... Good food, coupled with good service, always make me really happy, heh! Will try to make another trip there to try out other tempting foods on the menu before we head back!
Before I go into the contents of this post, a random musing: is it by mere coincidence that the core Line 1 of the Beijing subway (the longest east-west subway in Beijing spanning some 31.04 km) broke down during evening peak hour (no less) last evening - the day right after the Beijing Olympics ended? Woe betide the Beijing organizers if there was any transportation breakdown of sorts during the sacred Olympics season, and it's funny to see the same chaos I've come to expect of Beijing at the subway station yesterday. (I wasn't going to take the train, but was going into the underpass that links my office building to the shopping complex across the street to meet Wayne for dinner - subway personnel were ready to padlock-grill up the entrances to prevent overcrowding of people...)
Anyway... Rosabelle has been kicking/twisting/turning more and more these days - she is very, very active, and these past few mornings, I could not sleep in late as she will kick me awake (maybe she's hungry and wants me to get my lazy bum up to eat breakfast). Whilst sitting down still, I can at times even see my tummy heave from her wriggling, or see pokes of her body out of my tummy, so much that it's all quite cute to me, haha! Mum was advising me to give her pats on my tummy when she moves too much, to reassure her and put her at ease - it's a fun way to "interact" with her as well.
As Rosabelle grows from day to day, I was looking through photos of my dear nephew and niece (Simon and Marianne) when they were born, to get an idea of what my newborn might look like (bloody/grimy/wet/big/small?)...
Judging from the photos of Simon and Marianne on the day they were born, newborns look alike, are very sleepy, have "blur" looks on their rosy and chubby faces, and in both their cases, have very thick hair (maybe cos my sis drank alot of bird's nest...). And both of them look oh-so-cute, but when I think of how big Rosabelle has to grow before she pops out (and what I have to go through to pop her out), I am just amazed at how much more she, and my tummy, is going to grow over the remaining 2.5 months...wowee... Goodbye waist, hello backache!
Looking back at the photos when Marianne was born, Simon was only a "baby" himself at about 16 months old - but see how he tenderly stroked and "sayang" his baby sister - I remember when I saw these photos some three years ago, I was thinking to myself "How sweet...".
On a more practical note, Wayne and I have also started thinking about the paperwork of bringing Rosabelle back to Beijing next March - we'd need to apply for a Singapore passport for her (a passport for an infant - how cute!). I am also in the midst of getting information from the China Embassy in Singapore on the visas for her passport for her to get into China for long-term stay - the last thing we want is for our infant to be retained at customs for lacking the proper papers to get into the country, or get deported! Shudder...
When anybody talks about passports, they will think about how good/bad they look in passport photos, and I'm thinking - Rosabelle is going to use this passport for travels until she's five years old - but we all know infants change their looks hour to hour - how is the immigration officer going to ever ascertain that Rosabelle at three years of age is the same infant in the photograph taken at say, three months of age??? That, I leave to the experts to make their own judgements... but I then started looking around for tips on how to take photos of infants for passports. Passport photos have very strict guidelines, and I found a site that gave some tips for how to get best passport photos of babies and kids.
According to Singapore Immigration rules as stated on their website, Rosabelle's photograph must, amongst many other things, be:
So... my daughter has to prop her own neck up at 3 months of age, preferably without any clothing on that will risk blocking her face/shoulders, look straight ahead at the camera, open her eyes and close her mouth for the perfect shot.
It's probably going to be a nightmare for us to do it , as you can see from the below examples that are rejected (I think the final photo of this poor infant isn't exactly the cutest, but who needs cute when you are passing through customs, I guess):
How about our very own sunny island, Singapura's, "Shot at Fame"? Well, issues of foreign talents in table-tennis matches for the Games set aside, I think Singapore has now made its mark as a pro-marriage/pro-pregnancy/pro-baby/pro-family country. Our Prime Minister announced in his National Day Rally Speech that amongst other benefits, maternity leave have now been extended to four months (instead of three months), and the baby bonus for first kids are now SGD$4,000 (up from the previous SGD$3,000), with an additional maximum matching government contribution of SGD$6,000 for Children Development Account activities. Woo hoo! Now, I only need to be around long/often enough to tap the use of the latter set of funds.
View full set of pix here.
It was a very fulfilling day for Wayne and I on Tuesday as we caught some Olympic action (we did not want the tickets to go to waste even though Wayne's parents could not stay around to watch the events) - we both took half a day off work and headed off right after lunch to enjoy a leisurely trip to the event venue (even though our events started at 6pm). As we weren't sure whether the roads around the Olympic Green were open to public transport, we took the subway (my first time in many, many months), where we then had to walk about 200m to catch a connecting train (Line 8) right to the doorstep of the Olympic Green.
I was wondering prior whether Beijingers would be civic-conscious enough to offer their seats to a pregnant lady on the train. On my first ride, I stood in front of a couple in their late 30s/early 40s, who continued chatting on happily, oblivious to my tummy, until about 5 minutes into the ride. The woman gave up her seat, and (hopefully) the man was embarrassed enough and also gave up his own seat to his girlfriend/wife - shame on him, tsk tsk!
The new train stations in Beijing are very erm...new, almost like Singapore, and we even took shots at the Line 8 station which had special porcelein-like paintings on the walls/boulders/notice boards. The train rides weren't as scary as I thought, and on the Line 8 trip, a man nicely gave up his seat immediately for me (his wife even joked that his tummy's as big as mine)! However, I'd heard alot beforehand about the strict security measures/checks, and true enough, there were alot of security posts set-up before we entered the Line 8 station, where they checked on your tickets (only those with tickets to Olympic Green venue on that day were eligible), and that you do not bring any food/drinks in (Wayne and I had to finish off the packet of milk and apple I brought, right after a filling lunch - BURP!). However, the volunteers all have to be commended as they were all very friendly, knowledgeable, and efficient - kudos! And I've long heard about the various scalpers who positioned themselves strategically at the entrance to Line 8 - in spite of signages all over the place stating that scalping is punishable by law - haha!
After coming out from the train, we arrived at the door step of Olympic Green, where if yesterday's reports are anything to go by, we experienced Beijing enjoying its cleanest air for 10 years (and the blue skies are set to continue long after the Olympics), according to a top environment official. It wasn't sweltering hot, but luckily I had my shades and cap on, as I'd read before that there aren't too many sheltered areas in between the various sporting venues, and the walks can be quite long.
We were lucky to be minutes from the start of a float parade of the various Olympic mascots, where they displayed the 'Fuwas', and had dancers dressed according to the themes of the five dollies. The poor dancers were all so 'chao tah' (blackened), presumably from being under the hot sun for so many days. My photos/photo-taking was not helped by alot of brollies poking into my view, and of overly-excited aunties wanting to get a good view (had to tell an aunty to stop pushing me).
Name: Carina He Hui Xuan
Popped out on: August 12, 2008
Mom & Pop: Tang Bei and Jeff He
Jeff was my ex-colleague in Weber Shandwick Beijing and is now studying at Wharton University in the US for his MBA. He was with the Agency as well when Wayne was around, and they were both even room mates before. His wife also joined him in the US, as did her parents, when they found out she was expecting. They never managed to find out the exact sex of the child during the scans, and it turns out they have a healthy and beautiful baby girl as well, Carina He.
I particularly like this photo of Jeff cradling his newborn - the shadowy, peaceful lighting; his hidden expression; his careful and tender cradling of the baby... it just speaks volumes.
Congratulations to a dear ex-colleague and our friend.
Goody, not that much to-dos before heading home, but knowing me, I will likely be pottering around here and there before I leave for Singapore!
Or even closer to heart is Mum's support for the China team when they were up against our own Singapore team in the finals of the Women's Table Tennis Team event last night. My sister even called her a "叛徒" (traitor) in jest...haha! China President HU Jintao was even present at the finals last night, so you can imagine the pressure on the China team (they obviously won). I heard that there were Singaporeans present at the stadium, cheering LI Jiawei (Singapore's strongest paddler) on, but they were screaming "ai zai, ai zai!!!" (Hokkien for "steady, steady!!!) - erm..maybe it's because she's a Beijing native and did not understand the cheering...
In any case, it's no mean feat for Singapore that last got an Olympics medal (bronze for weightlifting) 48 years ago - even our Prime Minster Lee Hsien Loong delayed his National Day Rally speech by a day to await the results of this match. Just managing to see the Singapore flag raised at such a mega international sporting event as this is really quite an achievement (though the paddlers are mainly from China, heh). Looks like the $750,000 awarded by the Singapore National Olympic Council to the silver medallists will pay for a big party...(oh, in line with all things Singapore, the amount is taxable, by the way, heh!).
More about Mum - she has been updating me of the various preparations she and my sis (and guess everybody else at home) have been doing for Rosabelle's homecoming: re-painting the house (and finding out there were white ant nests lurking in parts of the home in the process - yeeks!); getting a new set of dining table/chairs (in her own words: "scared that when the fat, pregnant woman sits on the old chairs, they might give way and fall"!); dragging out Simon's/Marianne's infant clothing and washing them clean; cleaning out the cupboards for baby's and Wayne's/my clothes; re-varnishing the wooden furniture;...
They really have been kept busy, and even my sis, who has started part-time work in a friend's law firm, informed her boss that she will not be working in November, as I was going to deliver then. So sweet of them all, and I'm also getting all excited about going home in less than a month!
The above is exactly what Wayne's poor Daddy is feeling now. As you know, they are now in town to catch the Olympics action but perhaps it's due to a hectic past few days (where they both woke up really early (like, before 7 am) to head out in Beijing's hot August weather to places like the National Grand Theatre, Qianmen, or to scout for a place for Dad to play his favourite game of table tennis. Or the fact that the room aircon was too cold for them the first night. Or maybe it's due to new surroundings and they have not been resting well.
In any case, it has caused Mum to come down with a red eye (not conjunctivitis, but burst blood capillaries - too heaty), and Dad to come down with a bad flu. Bad enough for Mum to have to take him to the hospital this morning for a jab and glucose drip, and bad enough for them and Wayne to have to leave just 20 minutes into the finals of the Women's All-round Gymnastics this morning (which China got a bronze medal for) to go to the hospital again for further checks.
Poor thing...his nose was all red last night, and he was running a slight fever (he even told Mum he wanted to go home for fear of infecting me, aiyo!). Anyway, hope he gets better in time to catch the next event - the finals of Men's Parallel+Horizontal Bars/Women's Beam on Tuesday, 19 Aug, if not it'll be a wasted trip for them to not be able to enjoy the Games, not to mention him feeling terrible all the time...
On a lighter note and to celebrate the coming weekend (am going for my 28w check-up on Sunday!), enjoy some Dilbert clips showcasing some other work situations that I would certainly NOT miss (luckily I don't have to encounter them in my current job...). TGIF!
