Updates

Been very long since I last posted anything (save the Keck look-alike meter) and obviously something incredible has happened in my life.. I am now a mother to our little boy, born in early July. While I will not go through with the details of the process of delivery (believe me it was not that pretty anyway) but I will say motherhood is immensely enjoyable save for a few minor incidents with hyper-lactation.... too much of a good thing is BAD... the picture on the right is not a promotional picture for a certain brand of nursing products ( I should have turned the bottles to avoid any free promotion) but rather a picture of the 6-pack of breastmilk stored in our fridge on a daily basis for our little precious one. Yes, the only 6-pack in our fridge is milk. And this supply that you see is already after a (few) dosage of Sage tea to decrease production.

On the left of the blog is a photo of our precious little boy, photo taken at 8weeks. Been a handful today but I guess its life as a parent. I and more importantly, husband and I, are enjoying being parents but it is tiring.. and I am always struck by the fact that this is only the beginning... I do really appreciate my parents a lot more now...

Keck Look-alike Meter

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Household Help

This will sound so weird... having grown up doing my own laundry, cleaning my own room (Not very often), ironing my own clothes (still not that often) and cooking my own meals, now I have someone who cleans my house 1x a week and a part time help who comes in daily to (up to now) cleans my house and (when the baby arrives) takes over a babysitter...Talk about moving on up in the social ladder.

Truth be told, I am not that conscientious a person at keeping house. As long as I don't sneeze myself to death with the dust in the house, I am pretty satisfied wearing shoes all day at home and ignore (to the best of my ability) the layer of dust accumulation on the floor and furniture. Such is the life of DINKs (Double Income No Kids) before we found ourselves faced with the reality of becoming parents at the end of last year. Even then, I was still cleaning house myself when our families arrived to spend x'mas with us last year. Granted the house was not the cleanest but it was livable.

The first upgrade came about when we hired a 1x weekly cleaner to help keep the dust at bay. Mind you, it was a real upgrade. No longer was the floor clogged with dust or crumbs from the dinner table and for once, I could actually see what colour our furniture is. Not only was the dust sucked up by the vacuum, but ths house was actually mopped and the toilets were clean! My happiest moment had to be the realization that I can always look forward to having a clean stove at the start of every week. Not that I had help with the ironing (which by this point had been delegated, at a price, to the laundromats) nor the cooking or washing up. But the thought that I was no longer in charge of cleaning the floor, dusting the furniture and cleaning the bathrooms was so libertaing that I swore I nearly cried for joy!

And now, sheesh, what a step up in lifestyle for the stepford household. We finally managed to get part-time help every (week)day in the house. The idea was that this part-time help would also double up as babysitter and (sometime)kitchen help when I finally g0 back to work after delivery. And since the baby is still on its way, the part-time help has been turned into an avid fan of the Food Channel. Well, that is very unfair of me to say this. My part-time help has avtually been very conscientious at getting stuff done. She insists on asking me if she should clean the bathrooms everyday, or if the floor needs to be cleaned (everyday). Truth is there is not that much work to be done around the house. Though with the help around, stuff that was pending for like forever did manage to get themselves checked off the list. Take for example, hanging our paintings. For the longest time, all we did was visualize how how paintings were going to look on the walls. When the help arrived, they actually got hung on the wall. Ok, not every painting since some paintings are so heavy, I need another kind of help to drill in nails to get them up. But then still, at least the project got started. Plus the furniture in the guest room got moved to where now I can set up an office to work from. And today. lo and behold! My part-time help actually irons bedsheets! What a joy to have someone carry my groceries for me when we went to the store too.

This is the GOOD life!

Neo-natal / Post-partum (Old Wives') Tales

Isn't strange that only when you:
1) plan to get married / plan a wedding
2) get ready to have a baby / pregnant / on the verge of delivering a baby

that your social life (people you are supposed to know) get so incredibly big all of a sudden... And what exactly do I mean by that? Ever heard of the "They say" syndrome? When was the last time you heard your mother / aunty / neighbour /stranger come up to your face and say to you "They say....." If you are in my shoes now (aka, option 2, on the verge of delivering a baby) chances are you would have already have heard of "They say" about a million times over the course of 8+ months.

I can only wonder:
1) Who "they" are
2) What "they" do
3) Where "they" live
4) What else do "they" do besides tell you what "they" think you should do?

And here ranks the list of "They say" things that I have heard and (not) supposed to do while pregnant / delivering / post-partum
They say:
1) Don't drink any kind of cold drinks while pregnant - baby will be born with a bronchial condition / baby will develop colds very easily / baby will be chilled in the womb and will be born with a "cooling" body constitution (that is if you understand the fundamental of Chinese medicine)
2) Don't eat mutton during pregnancy - baby will have a higher chance of developing epilepsy / baby will be born hairy / makes the mother's body too heaty, no good for baby
3) Don't drink water after delivery - "They say it's not good for you". Instead, drink tea made with red dates and dried longan
4) Do eat more bird's nest (for the untrained eye, its dried up swallow's spit) - baby will be born with fair complexion
5) Don't eat dark coloured vegetables - baby will be born with dark complexion
6) Don't eat prawns / shrimps - baby will be born with ugly complexion
7) Don't drink chilled drinks post-partum - it will stop milk production
8) Do bath yourself with piping hot herbal stuff post-partum - drive "wind"from your body
9) Don't eat beef, mutton, lamb post-partum - too "heaty" (erm, whatever happened to the need for iron)
10) Don't shower or wash your hair post-partum - the mother will develop rheumatism
11) Do eat more fish post-partum - to increase milk production

So, here's the list of "they say" that I can remember, god only knows how much more I have heard and just forgot. But it is rather fascinating that "they" seem to know so much more about neo-natal / post-partum medicine rather than the obs in the hospital (whose only advice dispensed to me so far is no raw meat, drink more water and rest more).