National Day of Mourning - MH17 (A man made tragedy)

In view of the latest disaster that strikes our nation, the crashing of MH17, it has no doubt saddened and left many of us in shock especially so when the mystery of MH370 was just barely 4 months ago.      I was so hoping that it was another fabricated joke when I saw the breaking news over in FB.  Seriously?  Shot by missiles?  It was surreal at first.  Then, my heart goes out to all on board the ill fated flight.  I prayed that they did not suffer much.  When it began to sinked in, I got angry.  Why did human brought upon themselves all these unnecessary man made disaster??!

Greed.  It all boils down to more wealth & power.  Thus the fight against each other started.  To accumulate more.  How much is more?  And how much is enough?  If its not because of the greed of wanting more wealth and being more powerful, human beings would not need to fight against each other.  No weapons of destruction would ever be needed.  No conspiracy will ever take place.  

Did they not realized that we eventually turned into the same kind of dust at the end of the day irregardless of the mountainous wealth and boundless power accumulated?  Or nor there any difference in the type of dust of a beggar and a millionaire?

Money is just a paper with number that help us to move forward in this lifetime before transcending to the next.  If we are loving and harmony, we don't event need money. We would just help each other out.

Anyway, all that I can see is, it is inevitable that someday, we will all be destroyed by ourselves.  It has already started.  Every super power nations are building their ultimate weapon of destruction - nuclear bomb.  All it takes are just for them to start launching at each other and the mother of all war will begin and eventually wipe us all out leaving Earth lifeless and contaminated.

Rest in peace fellow passengers & crew of MH17.  Our deepest heartfelt condolences to the families & friends.

The husband & his Chronic Appendicitis

The husband was admitted to hospital for an emergency appendicitis operation yesterday when he decided to go for an ultrasound of a gnawing pain on his lower right abdomens.  The ultrasound then lead to a CT scan and subsequently admission and an emergency operation last night.  Until a moment ago, I still thought it was just another appendicitis.  Not after I ran a check with Mr Google that I learned it is not just another appendicitis, but, a 'Chronic Appendicitis'.

The common appendicitis are known as the Acute Appendicitis where one tends to have intense symptoms which progress rapidly.  Chronic appendicitis however are quite rare.  Symptoms are very mild which makes it hard to diagnose.  Its rate of progression are much slower and one tends to develop stomachache, nausea and high fever. The only effective way to successfully diagnose chronic appendicitis is through an endoscopy, blood analysis or abdominal computerized tomography.

Chronic appendicitis is considered to be one of the most serious forms of appendicitis. This is due to the fact that diagnosis may take a long period of time. In the time that it took to successfully diagnose the product appendicitis, bacteria may have slowly spread throughout the body's internal organs. As there is no abdominal pain with chronic appendicitis this condition can go on undetected, which in time can lead to serious complications later on. If a person is suspected of having chronic appendicitis, they will need to go through a rigorous physical examination, in conjunction with blood tests to successfully diagnose the problem.

The husband is up and about at the hospital today and I took a day off to make myself useful :p.  He will be discharging tomorrow.  At home, mom is taking care of the little one and Ella (our god sent helper), took care of the rest.  All in all, everything is good, thank God for blessing our family.

I learned something from this experience and that is, for the entire of our 6 years of marriage, this is the first time I slept alone!  The bed suddenly felt so big and the room even bigger! O.o. So that's how he must have felt for the so many times I left him alone at home while I travelled the world...*sinking feeling of guilt*!   hahaha...  I will still do it though.  At least now he have a small fart to keep him company! :)

Walking, running & cheeky

It has been slightly more than a year since the arrival of our bundle of joy.  14 months to be exact and he is no longer much of a bundle.  A feisty & playful little young man who explored every nook and cranny of the house, never fail to ransack every drawers and cupboards. *faint*

At 14 months, he is already walking steadily.  Running even.  Sprouted 8 tooth and learned a few words.  His best word 'there!'.  Whatever you asked him, e.g. "Gabb, where's your hanky?", he would point to somewhere and reply "There!".  Most of the time it is indeed 'there'.  But sometimes, if he can't find it, he would just simply point it to somewhere with a 'There!'. *rolling eyes*

He likes to play hide and seek.  All you need to do is just go "Gabb, where ARE you?" and he will go all excited and hide.  His favourite hiding place, corner of a room or behind the curtain, not very well hidden really, very much exposed in fact.  When you say... "There you are...!", he will squealed in excitement and run! Lols... innocence of a child.  How beautiful! 

We have recently gone for a short trip to Chiangmai, Thailand and he had kept us all well entertained.  When we laughed, he laughed too, as if he too sharing the joke.  

He has been with us wherever we went - Johor Bahru, Singapore, Port Dickson & Taiwan.  Many asked wouldn't it be too much of a trouble to bring along a baby?  Well, to us, trouble is only trouble if you perceive it as trouble.  Lols... Really, we don't bring the whole house whenever we travel.  As long as basic medicines are there, the rest are not so important anyway.  Not enough diapers?  Can get from 7Eleven around the world.  Not enough clean clothes, laundry services are everywhere.  So, what's the fuss?  

We believe all these traveling is a great learning experience for them.  From each trip, we can't help but noticed that he seems to develop new skills, achieved new milestones.  New social skills of interacting with various people we meet along the way.

The core is, we just couldn't imagine going anywhere without him.  

Deadly Mosquitoes

It has been such a long time since my last entry.  It feel almost like I ceased to exist.  How ironic in comparison to my blog's tag line... "Testimonial to existence of a being... ".  Ha!

Past few weeks have been rather depressing.  A very close colleague/friend lost her husband to dengue fever. Another new strain of dengue virus in fact.  It happened too fast.  Less than a week and he is gone.  We were all in shock.  Such great guy.  Depressing.  I could offer no words of comfort.  Just hope that 'time' would help to make the loss less painful for the surviving.  :(

Since then, I've gone a little crazy with mosquitoes repellent.  Especially so when our house is so near to a green patch.

Other than these...

Mozzie Clear Lotion for Gabb...

and these, Mosquito Repellent Patch on his shirt...

I've also placed these 'Antimos' around the house...

and plugged these in all corners.  I've refrain using this all these while due to unhealthy chemical reason.  But now, better to expose to a little unhealthy chemical than to dengue.  Or being in a situation of total helplessness when our love ones are suffering from the deadly virus.

So, have you protected your family?

Merry Christmas

Christmas is lots of fun this year mainly because of this small package of joy.  He is indeed so much fun and brought tremendous happiness to our small unit of a family!

This Christmas, we are counting our blessings.  We are thankful to be blessed with our mini Santa who never fail to flash his funny grins at us... love you so much son.  May you be filled lots of love always.

A Whole Week With The Tiny Bitty Baby

Am off work for a week to take care of the little one while mom is away on her well deserved vacation.   It was awesome! (no doubt a little tiring but fulfilling!).

Practically watched him grow before my eyes!  Both physically and mentally!  They do really grow in lightning speed.  Must treasure every moment.  

Since last Friday, he is at a much huggable size :p, taller & heavier.  I believed he just gone thru another growth spurt.  Been feeding quite constantly.  An average of 28oz of milk + 1 serving of puree per day.

Other than the 7 feedings & 3-4 naps a day, in between would be his highness playtime which includes...

1) Standing & falling in his sleeping playpen (whatever you call that).  He would pull himself up to a standing position and then try to walk to let go of his hand!  Naturally he would just fall cause his legs still not strong enough.  He just kept trying.  Full of zest!

2) Playing and attacking all the balls in his play yard.

3) Lazing on the mattress in front of the TV (off) pretending to be playing with his toys and enjoying the kiddies music in the background.  Crawled at lightning speed towards the TV console the moment I turned my back.  When caught red handed, just gave me a cheeky smile.

4) 25 minutes of Brainy Baby's Left & Right Brain.  He actually repeat after the commenter or said it before the commenter does (cause he watched this for his entire life!) in his own baby babblish.  It was pretty clear sometimes.

Other than these, he would follow me around the house, hanging onto my hip like a koala bear or lounging in this royal pram while I accomplished some houseworks.  Pretty fun actually.  He has been quite cooperative thus far.  Hopefully it remained.

We also managed to get his passport done up and went on short trip to Singapore!  The passport application was a breeze.  He was given VVIP treatment all because he was a baby!  He gets to jump queue and got his application done up in less than an hour and passport collected 2 hours later.  Privileges of being a baby.  How wonderful!  Oh yeah, I thought he looks like a baby hamster in this passport photo.  Hiding something in his chub chub cheeks!

He slept throughout the car ride from KL to Singapore and Singapore back to KL.  It was a bliss.  Let's hope he behave the same on flight to Taiwan come January!

We were there for 2 days 2 nights.  Met up with the people we wanna meet, ate the stuff we wanna eat.  Other than baby a little fussy come sleeping time (due to different place), he was generally alright.  

Not bad for a week.  It was pure joy!  Now I hope I get to loose some weight too. Then it would be A+ Awesomeness!  :p

Our Life Updates! :)

Time simply seems to elude me.  Thinking back, I’ve tonnes of it before the arrival of the bundle of joy.  Yet, I still don’t have time back then.  I need better time management.  Or perhaps I am taking on too much.  Or perhaps, I should change the mindset.  That, I’ve plenty of time (hoping that I would feel free-er).  :D

Baby G is coming to seventh month and I have officially stopped pumping when he hit half year old (6th month).  Baby refused to latch and it was solely pumping for the last 6 months.  Tedious.  Imagine, the first month, baby waking every 2 hours for feed. Feed, change, lull baby back to sleep, pumped and the cycle repeats with barely 30 minutes of sleep.  Thank God he decided to sleep thru from second months onwards.  But still, I have to wake to pump every 3 hourly. O.o 

6th month's milestones:
* Pulling himself up to a standing position without much effort!
* Tasted baby rice, potato, carrot, apple.
* Sprouted 2 front teeth @ month 4th.
* Weight approximately 8+kg, length 69cm

So how’s motherhood?  I would say, fulfilling despite of total changes of lifestyle.  Pretty fun actually.  I think I got it rather easy with my mom being here fulltime taking care of the little one while I am away at work or when the husband and I decided to have some time off.  Nothing beats fighting 1 hour traffics getting home after a long day at work, being greeted by the toothless grin and excited wiggly  legs wanting to be carried.  I am afraid, I would spoil him sometimes.  I couldn’t resists.  How do you reprimand a face like that? :p

Work, has been ok.  Plenty of new roles have surfaced since I got back.  Some of which I wanted very much to take on but after much consideration, perhaps it is not a good timing now with a young baby at home which is where my priorities are now.  A little disappointed though.  But then again, if it is right, opportunity would present itself again in time to come.  The new role that I am interested in is much more challenging & demanding than whatever that I am doing now.  It would no doubt be draining and that is not what I wanted at this point of time.  The little time left of me should be 100% me for my little one.  Not just physically.    

Marriage, has been awesome.  The husband has always been supportive.  Helping out whenever he can or when I needed time out.  We make a conscious effort to spend quality time whenever we can like catching a movies and etc and I thought it is good.  Life shouldn’t just revolved around the baby.  I still very much agree with the saying “starting a relationship is easy.  It is maintaining it that is a challenge”.  It is something that we can’t slack.

As for myself, I am back to my pre-baby weight. :D  The pouch is still there but I am already fitting into my old jeans a month after the baby’s arrival.  Now I am hoping to pre-pre-baby weight.  But the needle on the scale is not going anyway.  Hmm… u see, I’ve gained some right before conceiving.  Anyway,  not complaining.  Just hoping and a tad greedy.  Lols…

Other than the baby & family, there are so much things going on and I can’t help but feeling my brain are stuffed sometimes.  The baby room needed to be done up (space theme as per the photo), the photo frames needed to be filled, the upcoming trip needed to be planned and finalised, the curtains, deco and etc… omg.  *faint*.  When we just shifted into the new home, I was already heavily pregnant.  Lots of miscellaneous stuff were left KIV as I simply couldn’t find more energy then.  Now that the baby is 6+ months old, I guess I do not have any more excuses. :p  Not forgetting, the old house need to be cleared out too. 

Oh yeah, I managed to sneak away for a short getaway at a beach resort with my gf too.  It was a good one filled with good food, talking & more talking.  Hahaha… That’s basically what girls do.  My moment of zen.  Lols…

I may sound like a lunatic with all these that’s going on in my life now.  But I am loving every minute of it.  Let's just put it this way, I believe it all happened at the right timing!