More on a cheeky boy

These days, he knows about the last "boo" from a choo choo song, and would look at me with anticipation as he waits for it to come. And when it does, he'll go "boo!" happily and asks for more :)

Here are my boys watching choo choo together - Sito was trying hard to ignore me :p



ZK decided to hide in his toy box!



Ta-da!



Mum got him a new toy and he was so happy!



And that afternoon, he was so tired but insisted on getting on the bike. Within moments, he nodded off in biking position! Still tried to protest when I carried him up but only briefly. He also briefly asked for his pacifier but went down without it in the end.

The second morning in Taipei, we Skyped him! Poor boy looked confused..



That night, he wasn't too happy too - was it because we disrupted his choo choo? :p



And final Skype at Changi - he had plenty of toys in front of him at dinner!



Having 太阳饼 - the bruise on his forehead came from a head-on collision with a classmate!



Squinting at my flash :p



He insisted on walking down the stairs by himself, and he had such a delighted look when he managed a step!




This week, he walked quite a bit of the way to school every morning. It takes more time but he is able to stop whenever he likes to look at things and tell me about them, which I think is quite cool. Two significant happenings:

Yesterday:
mf: 狗狗怎么叫
ZK: 喔喔
mf: 猫猫怎么叫？
ZK: 猫猫

Today, he spotted the dog in the house across the road and stopped. He said "狗狗" and then he jumped and shouted "woah woah!" He wanted the dog to bark! But the dog was just watching the world go by... So I put a finger to my lips and said the dog was quiet, shhh... He paused, and did the same! Then we walked off :)

Happily carrying his bag on the train, like a big school boy :)



Mum was in Malacca so we stayed in the Sunday after Taipei - he looked so fat :p



Monday, 17 March, was childcare centre closure day. Gave him breakfast on the table instead of his tray - big boy now!



At Mother's place playing with my old Macs toys!



Just how many kids have stood at this door, staring outside...? I count at least eight including this one..



The school finally put up pictures from LNY and his excursion earlier this month! I took pictures of pictures *.*

Peeling oranges at LNY:



Standing around randomly at the excursion:



No idea what they were doing!



ZK had a whole chocolate chip muffin to himself as he refused to have it broken up - but he had only about 60% of it.



First family outfit! ZK can finally fit into it, just as I was about to outgrow it...



We had CW's family over last Saturday so SSY took the photo for us. We tried to put the two kids to nap together but failed miserably. In the end, I took ZK to our bed instead. V dozed off shortly while ZK took at least another hour!

And we went out after his nap - check out my matching boys!



The little one lost his pants - so dirty after dinner!



(And I had sashimi at dinner, oops!)

So happy despite being pantless!



Bumped into our immediate neighbours who were dog-sitting Spooky, a good friend of their Kumo. ZK saw them as he came up the stairs and went to touch both of them one by one. On our floor, he spooked Spooky when he reached for her tail!



Looks like lumps of poo poo?!



They are mushroom! He decided that they were quite fun, pouring them out and putting them back. He even tried to taste two!



He was quite funny that afternoon at Mum's place. He went up the massage chair where he was kind of hidden from our sight. Then he peered out and said, "hi, Mama.. Papa, Mama.." Love the little pause between "hi" and whoever he is hi-ing to :)

Tuesday morning, he came into our room early in the morning, took my phone and asked for "bus". I was so sleepy! I asked him to bring in the phone from outside instead - he really went and handed it to me! I asked him to close the bedroom door and he did. Ok, no more delay - played "wheels on the bus" on the spare phone and stole a few more minutes of sleep as he rolled around on our bed.

He came home with his term 1 work on Wednesday - think I need a box or something to store them!

Various body parts and a random heart:



And they made him put the face together!



There were others too - handprints and footprints, phonics A and S with pictures of things starting with those letters, and long and short.

This term, they are learning about community workers such as policemen and firemen. He hasn't started singing new songs to me yet so let's wait and see....

Pregnancy pains

I have been having mouth ulcers for the past six weeks wtf!!!!

Almost right after I recovered from my cross-LNY cough, I developed ulcers. They came on and off, not the terribly painful with a white hole in a yellow ring type (!), but super painful nonetheless. Every time I thought one was going away, another one came up.

Now, I have four concurrent ones on my tongue - both sides! I haven't enjoyed food for quite a while. While in Taipei, I brushed my teeth whenever I got the chance and rinsed with Listerine whenever I could to keep the pain away so that I could eat. I had not observed such good oral hygiene since the early days of my braces *.*

Add to that an irritated gum lining behind my single remaining wisdom. It is usually very difficult to reach - the toothbrush will inevitably poke my gums cos the tooth is so near the end of my jaw inside. I really regret not taking it out some 10 years ago when I removed the other three - two were causing infections and one had to go cos there was no more bottom buddy to bite into. Now I have this stupid bottom left wisdom tooth left, giving me a grand total of 25 teeth; I took out more four for my braces at 19.

I've had pretty bad ulcers but I've not experienced such on-off ulcers before so I can only put it down to the pregnancy. It is, according to many mummies, not uncommon. And I was told to eat more proteins to help rebuild cells and take more vitamin B.

Next, my overgrown twins.

When I got home this evening and got changed, I found my boobs burning! Yes, I now have, um, assets - they have been with me for quite a while now and making me generally uncomfortable. With ZK, my boobs didn't kiss my belly until later. Now as I'm sitting here, I can feel the crease between my skin there getting sweaty. Yup, mighty gross, not to mention the dreaded possibility of a permanent crease aka wrinkles :(

And my dear ZK aggravated this problem - whenever I'm next to him in bed, he will somehow kick me in my boobs or worse, somehow press on just the nipples down onto the bed! When I'm carrying him in my PJs, sometimes a little hand will find a little knob worth twisting *.*

But I should be thankful. After the initial spotting and bleeding, everything seems to be progressing well now. I get that odd sharp muscle pain near my tailbone, usually on the right. I started getting some leg cramps in the past week. But with my height, I have sufficient space in the middle to deal with a growing belly. And I think it was a blessing to have grown up with a squat toilet - all that squatting did me good! That's why angmohs in the developed countries developed Kegel to help with childbirth and recovery - they sit to shit and don't have strong pelvic muscles :p

Last time, I quite effortlessly carried ZK to term. I only remember an irritated nose and awful backaches in the beginning, and then sharp pelvic pains towards the end. I was just thinking back to those times and remembered how I used to squat all over our kitchen and toilet in Evanston to scrub the floor with a piece of cloth in my hands! And also packed all our stuff back to Singapore, moved back into our place and unpacked everything. I'm still squatting around to chase after a little man in the house..

Now don't ask me why I can't cut my own toe nails :)

A very full babymoon

Don't read this if you're hungry - you'll get hungrier! :p

Monday, 10 Mar 2014

We took the 8.30 am flight and arrived at Taipei at 1 pm. When we got to the city, we found a late lunch at a udon place at the Taipei Station. We had a bowl of udon each and shared some assorted tempura.

Checked into Sheraton Grande Taipei by 3.00 pm. Our junior suite was nice! There was a cabinet for coats and a walk-in wardrobe for the rest. And since we were going to be there until Thursday, I unpacked everything and felt happy :)

But I didn't feel too happy once I found the weighing machine :(

We lazed around for a while before heading out. First, we checked out the executive lounge and the gym. Then off to Shilin night market we went!



大肠包小肠! Meat sausage wrapped in a glutinous rice sausage!



We were queuing for it and this couple came near us to watch the food cooking. Then the girl asked her partner, "要排队吗?" Hello, you think we just stood there for fun??!

So happy to get our first food at the night market! The first of many!

胡椒饼! The meat was very peppery and yummy :)



Kindly walked into this stall while roaming.. Love them 生煎包! Think we had both the meat and the vege..



Then we had the meat one again at another stall :p

And of course Hotstar fried chicken in Sito's hands and 葱油饼 in mine!



I told myself that this time, I would have 阿宗面线 and we did! It was so good! Why didn't I have it the last time?? In fact, it was so good we had it again on Wednesday night - and we found that we could ask for one without the intestines! Save NT10 :p



And of course we had bubble tea along the way :) We shared the medium cup - there was no small actually - which is the equivalent of the big cup here, at NT35-45 typically, so cheap!

We also did some shopping - got two dresses for myself at NT350 each and two sets of PJs for ZK at NT100 each :)

Had to weigh myself again when we returned to our room :p Gained 400g! :p And that was before supper!

The 黑豆浆 was from 八方云集 where we also had meat and vege gyozas at NT5 each - pictures further down cos we had them again :p I forgot what the white thing was.. The skewer was a whole chicken thigh rolled into a roll - wonder how they did that..



It was Marvel night - watched movies until we got tired..

Tuesday, 11 Mar 2014

Leaving the curtains a little open was a bad idea. I woke with the sun *.*

But managed to Skype ZK before he left for school! Sito woke to say something too :) He was quite bewildered and kept looking to the door to see if I were there, hoho! He looked a bit sad though, as though he suddenly realised I wasn't there with him, sighs...

Did some work while Sito slept on *.*

Went to the lounge for a light and healthy breakfast of fruits and salad before heading out.

I was all decked out in pink! :) I left the coat unbuttoned when it wasn't too cold cos, well, my belly was bulging already... And I was so glad for my boots cos it rained every day - mostly drizzling except the last night but I never like wet toes!



Our plan was to eat at Jiufen! And we did! I was there before and loved it, but it was Sito's first time there. Let me show him what to eat :)

First, some meat and fish balls at this place full of photos of the lady boss - almost like a shrine *.*



Fried mushrooms!



Ice cream popiah! I had it the last time too :)



I think we also had a mega sausage nearby - no picture but it was good!!

Hot yam balls in soup! My stomach was feeling bad by then so I thought hot would be better...



I didn't remember seeing so many stalls selling yam balls the last time though.. I did queue for hot yam cake that was the best I'd ever had. This time, I didn't spot a queue but bought one for each of us anyway - still yummy but cold. It was later when I realised that it was a timing issue - they restarted making yam cake later and there was a queue!

We walked up and down the street a few times looking at stuff and eating, but my gastric pain was getting no better so we decided that it was time to go. But not before we had some mega fried prawn balls!



We were supposed to go to Pingxi and/or Shifen but because of my stomach, we went back to rest instead, sighs... But not before we got a cup of bubble tea!

By evening time, we were ready for more food. And I was feeling better. So we went to Shida night market. It looked different from the last time but we managed to eat a lot too :)

Buns! Very big and juicy :)



Steak on spaghetti! We thought it wasn't spaghetti though.. More like thin udon..? Who cares, yummy!



虾仁煎! Cos we don't eat oysters...



Finally, 烧仙草! At first I thought it was different from last time as it was too watery, but after a while, we realised that I had forgotten that the thing would solidify after a while! So good :)



Before we left, we had wantan soup with beancurd, our only 卤味 the whole trip.



Then it was bubble tea number 2 with us at the hotel :) Oh, and we bought Hokkaido soft serve ice cream from the 7-11 near the hotel on the way back - it was so creamy and rich!

This night, we kept a toilet light on instead of the curtain, and I woke past 8.00 am! Bliss!

Wednesday, 12 Mar 2014

We always thought the pregnant woman sign was cute - like a ball hidden under clothes :p



Anyway, we started with a healthy breakfast at the lounge again, and walked to Huaining Street where I last stayed to check out the hotels there. The hotel I last stayed in was renovated! Heard from Kel it changed hands. Found a lot of food in the area as well - we thought we could stay there next time we go to taipei :)

Also walked around the station mall a bit but it was too early and many shops were still not open for business..

Then it was off to our one and only proper sit-down meal - at Ding Tai Fung! Waited for some 15-20 min for a table.

Loved my outfit - ribbon on belly! ^.^ And I let my hair down without my little clip - it's the "old" mf, i.e. what I used to look like years back!



We shared a 炸酱面, a 酸辣汤 and 10 小笼包 so that we could eat more later :p



Then we walked along Tonghua Street, and found 甜不辣!



And 八方云集 again! This time, we had the 白豆浆, vege gyoza and...



... 肉饺 and 虾饺! But the latter didn't taste much of prawns, bleah..



葱抓饼! Cos I love 葱 :p



Very full by then but how could we pass up on some mango dessert? :) Mango ice cream on shaved ice and mango :)



Being very full and it was too early for dinner, we went back to hotel to laze around, with a cup of bubble tea :) Then we went to Danshui!

Supposed to catch the sunset but it was cloudy and drizzling so there was nothing to see but food to eat :p

Didn't take pictures there though cos the drizzle turned into a downpour :( But we had fried mushrooms and fried squid, and walked around quite a bit. I thought it was a little place near the sea but there was actually a lot to see, including a seemingly huge shopping area that we didn't have time to see.. Next time..

We were determined to go to Shilin despite the rain! By then, the rain was having mood swings...

Had two of these, chicken with leeks - super spicy!



Glutinous rice! They call it 油饭 - so yummy :)



This was another fried chicken, with honey.



We had shelter from the rain at the cinema.. And next to the cinema was a bubble tea shop so... :)



Also had a vege 生煎包 but it turned cold as I started shopping :p Bought some hair accessories and a onesie for little baby to wear on discharge, very happy!

It was really pouring as we left and I got wet as my coat was not waterproof. So I took it off and pulled my scarf into a cardigan instead - Sito was so amazed! Repeat stunt back at hotel :p



Oh yes, that was yet another Hokkaido ice cream in my hand :) Also brought back our third cup of bubble tea - one for day 1, two for day 2, three for day 3! - and McPork :p Yes, there was a Macs opposite the 7-11!

More movies late into the night - after all, this was our last night in Taipei..

Thursday, 13 Mar 2014

Breakfast #1 - carrot cake, cheese 蛋饼 and soy milk.



Breakfast #2 - 温州大馄饨! We saw the chain umpteen times and finally had it!



Went all the way to Taipei Station, walked around, got bubble tea :) and headed back to the hotel. Also grabbed a 青葱长饼 along the way but we couldn't finish it - too full!

Packed our stuff and checked out. Grabbed a cab and off to the airport we went, sighs...

Lunch was 卤肉饭 for him...



And 牛肉面 for me!



Oh, so we had 卤 stuff again after all :)

Immigration was a breeze cos we got into the priority queue with my belly. Even back in Singapore, we didn't need to queue for a cab! But ended up in a more expensive cab, oh well!

We Skyped with ZK while waiting for our luggage - he was having dinner and looked bewildered again. Love this boy :)

So there, our first proper and well rested holiday and couple time in almost two years, and our last for quite a while... Probably going for a staycation before little baby arrives, and then it's lovely family time! :)