Wednesday, May 24, 2006

Week 35: being crafty

Dearest Son,

I have made several animal finger puppets and some colorful figures to be hung as mobiles above your crib. During the last two weeks I’ve bought about 16 colors of flannel cloths with matching thread, two craft books for examples, and two tubes of all purpose adhesive. I hope you’ll love what I made, Son.

Monday, we went to the doctor again. This time, we could not see your face since you were facing my backside. My weight has increased to 62kg, officially adding 10kg to my pre-pregnancy weight, and you were approximately 2.7kg. Doc said that all was normal. Your kicks can be seen clearly on the tummy now, getting frequent and sometimes painful (I didn’t complain though, always happy to be kicked). Doc said we would have to go for weekly visit after week 37. Your dad and I are very excited to see you outside my womb, Darling.

Tomorrow is a public holiday (your Dad will be around the whole time, yay!) and we promised your aunts for an outing, watching movie together and maybe having lunch or dinner outside. Grandpa and grandma is flying off early in the morning to Semarang to visit your great-grandparents. They would be back on Saturday. Oh, and yesterday, your cousin, Kev, turned two!

Now you are kicking me again, babe. I don’t know if I can stand your kicks in the next weeks if you keep on getting stronger day by day.

Love you.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

The Traveler

It’s a hot Thursday afternoon, I’m sitting in my dad’s desk facing the laptop and typing. Inside my womb, my baby son is sleeping peacefully. My mom and sister are sleeping to in their room. My other sister is having an entry test for her future employment and the youngest one is going to the shopping mall with her friends.

Hey, now my baby is kicking me.

Last year at this timing, I am still working as an engineer in a semiconductor company. Air conditioned office with light brown cubicle, warm coral colored comfortable chair, a cup of coffee on my desk, and a screen full of schematic of an electronic circuit. I have had plans to stop working and to get married by then, but I did not expect to be pregnant this soon. Having this baby changed some of our plans for this year. S
ometimes that made me wonder whether my life is too unorganized and unplanned. But I'm happy with my life right now, especially with this miracle kicking in my womb. I might not be able to work or to earn any money this year, but what I am experiencing now worth much more than that.

What about next year at this timing? I will probably have a bouncing 10 month old baby on my lap, wherever I will be in this big wide world.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Week 34: The hand-me-downs

I got a baby changing table, a few blankets, and other baby stuffs from Aunt Ing today. Darling, you will have a lot of hand-me-downs you know. Some are historical since they were worn by your mother (and aunts) and by your grandmother (and grandaunts). To add to the historical values, most of the hand-me-downs were hand made. Some blankets, clothes, and mittens that were worn by me were hand sewn by your grandmother, and the ones worn by grandma were hand sewn by your great grandma!

Looking at those things, I had to believe that once your grandma and I were as tiny as you. Life is indeed amazing, don’t you think?

Sunday, May 14, 2006

The Shopping weekend! - week 33

Wowy dearest,

I could not believe that both of us have arrived to the beginning of week 34, soon you will be a full term baby and can be born safely into the world.

This weekend was a shopping weekend. We went shopping full force and used up almost the whole of the two days for shopping. My poor feet look a little bit chubbier and hurt a little. Anyway, I am enjoying this pregnancy very much.

Saturday early morning, I suddenly woke up because of sharp pains at both of my legs, knee downwards. That was my first experience of leg stiffness. I could not sleep peacefully afterwards because I’m afraid that I’ll hurt my legs again if I moved in certain ways. Thankfully, that didn’t happen again.

You kicked me quite furiously when we walked for hours this afternoon. Were you excited or uncomfortable I could not phantom, but I was quite afraid that all the walking will somehow affect the womb and started the contractions. As much as I want you to come out immediately, I did not want you to come out and go straight into the incubator. I want you to come out straight into our warm embraces.

Some updates, we were looking at some cribs now and still could not decide which one to buy. If only you can try each one of them and tell us which suits you the most. And daddy got himself a pair of new glasses today, with lens that could go darker if the sun is too bright. Haven’t had the chance to try them though, the sun has set when we went out from the building.

We love you baby. See you in a few weeks time!!!

Sunday, May 7, 2006

Week 32: Two kittens and a dislocated shoulder

Lots of things happened this week.

On Monday night, your grandma found two little kittens in front of our car port. Your aunt Yen gave them some rice and fish to eat. Then mewed and mewed and mewed. Lucky they stopped mewing during the night when we slept. But early on Tuesday morning, they started mewing again. When grandma went out to take the newspaper, they were under your dad’s car. But when your dad went to work, they were nowhere to be seen.

Sometime later, about half an hour after your grandpa and aunt Ling went to work, they called back home. Aunt Yen, who picked up the phone, told me that they found the two kittens hiding on top of the spare wheel that was kept under the car. Apparently, they heard the kittens mewing when they were trapped in a traffic jam. Grandpa stopped the car, went out to check, and found both of them there. Grandpa tried to get them out and got bitten by one of them; I think they were quite terrified by the whole thing too. Grandpa was afraid that they would fall off the car and got squashed by other cars if he left them where they were.

Poor grandpa and aunt Ling had to go back home after they left the kittens at the housing estate nearby. Grandpa needed to shower again since he was drenched in sweat and dirt. They were very late that day.

I helped grandma quite a lot too that day, the maid was not coming again. Washing clothes, dishes, sweeping and mopping the floor, then ironing the clothes, I did all that. I was quite proud of myself since I was usually very lazy to do those things. Grandma told me to stop doing all that for fear that you came out too early.

Aunt Can messaged me from Singapore, telling me that she was carrying a boy as well. All right, a playmate!

Then Aunt Val in Malaysia messaged me, telling me that her baby girl was born on Sunday. She seemed happy and we were happy for her too.

On Wednesday, your dad and I went swimming in the nearby sport club after your dad went back from work. After swimming for a few laps, I went up first to shower while daddy continued swimming. When I finished changing and everything, I found him still in the swimming trunk, walking towards me with a pain in his face. He told me he broke his arm. I could not believe it till he asked me to see his left shoulder. His shoulders were in different shapes, something was not right with his left. He felt a lot of pain and could not move his left arm. We planned to have a quick exercise that night, so we did not bring our handphones and wallets. Your dad obviously could not drive the car in his condition, I went panic.

Lucky, there was a swimming coach in the changing room and he helped to fix dad’s shoulder. His shoulder was dislocated because he did not do enough warm-ups before doing the butterfly style. After the coach’s touch, dad could move his arm, turned it around normally, only still quite painful. He rested for a while in the changing room. Then I called home for grandpa to pick us up and bring some food for dad. Dad is recovering well. Other grandpa said that he could not lift heavy object and do sports for at least three months.

Today, we went for breakfast with your dad’s side grandparents and went around finding a bed for you in a shopping mall. I bought a craft book about flannel cloth handmade accessories; I planned to make colorful mobiles and finger puppets for you, Darling.


We went back quite late and pretty tired, but your dad gave in to my wish of stopping at a shopping mall buying the flannel cloths and threads before we went home. How sweet of him!