Monday, February 22, 2010

Good times in Melbourne - Home away from home

During our short stint in Melbourne, we stayed with Aunty Irene, Uncle Leong and my cousins Philesia and Jacqueline.
Home away from home was at Scoresby, and we pretty much did what the local folk did - dine at Asian restaurants and had dim sum at Yum Cha, go shop at the local supermarts etc.
The only touristy thing we did was probably joined a local tour to Great Ocean Rd to see the 12 Apostles (or 8, whatever's left of em).

At the airport departure:

My happy family shot



as usual, Gonggong is very proud of his fav Grandson.. because he's the only grandson. Haha!



At first, Baby Adam slept in the bassinet.


But after a grand total of 15min, only Mom's lap will do.


Home after 8 hours!!! What a long tiring plane ride for us, and poor Baby Adam is jetlagged.
Local Aussie time was 7.30AM, but in SGT it was only 4.30am. Can you imagine?!


We stayed at my Uncle & Aunt's huge but cozy home in the suburbs.


Our guest room had a mini bar, toilet, couch with TV, and even a big piece of lawn attached!


As expected, Baby Adam spent most of his mornings in the lawn playing, often on his own.


Showing Mummy a blade of grass he plucked from the ground. Hehe


Getting distracted by magpies on the cherry trees



And he also walked his baby steps too!


"I made it to you Mummy! Ho ho ho"


Went to the local Carribean market which apparently sold everything from food to vehicles.


Baby Adam playing and observing seagulls & ducks in the nearby lake.


Cheeky bubs!


We also brought Baby Adam to the nearby Chesterfield Animal Farm which was only 5 min drive from our home.


He can't feed them yet, but at least he is enjoying himself under the shade of a tree.


In the Nursery Barn with tame baby animals.



more photos to come when I have time :)

Sunday, February 14, 2010

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR




Here's Baby Adam wishing all our friends & loved ones a Very HAPPY & PROSPEROUS Lunar New Year and Happy Valentine's Day!

This year, being Baby Adam's first CNY, is extremely busy as you can expect - we had soooo many places to go, so little time, therefore we had to plan whose houses to go to first/last.
It is also Andy & my first year distributing angpaos instead of collecting. Boo hoo! But thankfully we have Baby Adam to help us collect back some $$ hahaha!
Baby Adam collected close to $1k of angpao $$ on the 1st day of CNY. Fatt ah!
Andy & I decided to open his own Savings Acct with that money, on top of his current insurance-tied investment and CDA account.

We've also got our visas approved, changed AUD$$ and almost finished packing our luggages. Phew!
Catch ya all when we are back from Melb.
Have a lovely V-day everybody!

The Tans :)

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Babies are perfect...

...excuses (oops!) reasons for everything.
Stuck in a call with someone who doesn't know when to hang up? "Sorry I gotta go now! Adam's crying for milk".

Don't know how to turn down your Mom who wants you to run errands for her when you're already up to your neck at work/home?
"I can't. Not today. I gotta look after Adam. He hasn't spent quality time with me all week".

Or simply... "I better bring him outside" makes a quick escape strategy.


Prior to having kids, I was absolutely clueless about what to say/ask around people who have kids, mainly because not many relatives/friends I know have children.
In order to make conversation, I said/asked things like "Did she cry?" (after a fall), "Do they cry all the time?" In retrospect, I feel like kicking myself in the shin right now when I think about that.
And my idea of a perfect way to spend an off-day in the past? To laze around at home with a magazine, sleep in till I need to go pee, then come back and sleep somemore, wake up, refuse to brush teeth, eat, take a long bath and finally brush my teeth, doll up, go shopping, meet Andy after he knocked off, go for romantic dinner for two, or meet my gal friends...


NOW, I seem to have gotten used to not getting enough sleep, no time on my hands, our worlds all centred around Little Adam, who has EVERYONE wrapped around his little little metacarpals.
Oh wait, Sundays are good for sleeping in, even with a baby! One of the rare treats in a parent's life.

And I appreciate people who ask me about motherhood, about Adam, and friends who still remember me as "Veron" and not merely "Adam's Mummy".
It's great talking about Bugaboo, Stokke, milk bottles ("Orthodontic or normal teats?"), where to buy what, etc with my friends, particularly a certain gal friend *cough cough*, who is gonna have her bundle delivered in May!

But really, babies are good excuses to go shopping! They need wardrobe changes all the time, and everything's too cute to walk away from at Mothercare.
Speaking of Mothercare, go check out the flagship at Harbourfront. It has the largest collection of all the other outlets combined into one.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

My new ride

Finally, some photos of Mummy's speed demon :)

In my favourite Candy White. This color wasn't an available choice and we had to wait 8 weeks for one to be shipped from Germany.





The newest 18" Work Emotion 11R matte bronze rims, which had to be custom-made for our GTI's 5-pcd.
Again, more waiting. Took 9 weeks to reach us!





Personalised with Baby Adam's first pair of booties.



Actually, it is Baby Adam's car, Mummy is just the chauffeur :P
the young master is pictured here going grocery-shopping with Mummy.

(photo taken at 7 mths)

New Ikea high chair for CNY





Baby Adam has 2 places to go for his Reunion Dinner - first stop is buffet with Andy's family, followed by steamboat with my mine.
Therefore, we bought a new high chair for him, something simple & light from IKEA to put at my parents', which costs only $29 ($25 without the feeding tray).

We actually rushed out to get it on last Friday night and we bumped into Crazy Carol & Hongkuan. They were furniture-shopping for their new pad.

In fact, I'm liking this new feeding chair better than his current one, which drives me insane because Baby Adam is learning how to self-feed now and can you imagine all the food he has smeared onto the cushion and how many times I have to wash it!

With this new feeding chair, it is so much more convenient to wipe clean and I don't have to worry about Baby Adam being a messy eater.
.
.
.
by the way, Baby Adam went for his 9 months development assessment today (which he did well) at Dr Simon's and at the same time we took his travel meds - for flu, fever and diarrhoea.
Speaking of diarrahoea, I apologise if I sound as though I'm having Blogspot diarrhoea, but really, February is a busy month for us with many happenings!

Saturday, February 6, 2010

Long overdue photos: Huiwen's Wedding! 29.11.09 AM SESSION

I left my (then) 6 months old Baby Adam with Andy early morning.

At the ungodly hour of 7AM on a Sunday morning: the Jie-meis nowhere near sleepy, clearly deriving fun from the prospect of torturing the men!




Granny undies and bananas. Crazy Carol (to my left, which is RIGHT in this photo) acting demure *cough cough*


My pretty bride doing her makeup & hair. She's glowing!


I can see the pride and joy


Our pretty wrist corsages hand made by Huiwen. This is Carol, my crazy gal friend. -__-


Here comes the handsome groom Julian & his troopers!


Anguish. Hahaha


What's a married-with-kid woman like me looking perverse handing out the undies?!


Julian braving it all because his "brothers" not on one!


Huiwen, no peeking!


"Good morning Huiwen, we are your Angels"












I wish this couple a blissful and happy life together :)
and this was the white dress I borrowed from Charmaine. Thanks sweets!

The PM session's few photos can be found HERE.

Packing for Down Under

I've only got the most important aspect of Baby Adam's luggage sorted - his food.
The rest of our luggages, I'll have to pack in between work, studies and preparing for CNY.




I'm sooo looking forward to our first trip abroad as a family, together with my brother, aka Uncle Junwen.
I'm really thankful he can make it, because with all these extra baggage weight, I'm not sure if Andy & I can handle, on top of having to check in our Bugaboo Cameleon and not to mention the shopping!

We'll be doing a road trip around Melbourne, driving along Great Ocean Road and bringing Baby Adam to see penguins at Philip Island, and kangeroos at the local farms.

At the same time last year, Andy & I did a road trip in Perth.
I was 4 mths preggy with Baby A :)

Hanging with Mavy




Here are the 2 brothers hanging together on random afternoons.
In case you don't already know, Mavy has taken up Babysitting as his new full-time job, and he's taking it rather seriously Haha.
Baby Adam loves torturing the dogs too, although Alice doesn't really reciprocate that love.

Whenever Baby Adam is in his walker, he will chase after the dogs, who will run and try to hide but Baby Adam will scream and be mighty pleased with himself, as if to say "You can run but you can't hide!"
And mind you, those wheels do hurt!

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Mango is hospitalised

My mum's cat Mango is hospitalised, and the story goes like this:

My mum came home from work on a Monday morning and couldn't find Mango anywhere in the house, though he would usually come running after her once he hears her voice.
She searched everywhere and couldnt find him, so she thought he had run away from home, though it is extremely unlikely because he is a scaredy cat who has never even stepped out of the front door.

She continued searching on Tuesday morning and asked the neighbourhood cleaner whether she has seen an orange tabby cat. She said "Yes, it was on the floor but it ran away" so my Mum gave chase to the pointed direction and searched everywhere again, in vain.
When she got home, she ran into our neighbours who said they saw Mango badly injured, likely due to fall from the window, and bled profusely so they called SPCA and SPCA took Mango away.

My mum was anxious that they would euthanise Mango so she rang SPCA up and the SPCA staff said "He is Ok, you can bring a carrier down to collect him".
My mum went down with Uncle Jeffrey and Mango's carrier, happy that she could bring him home.
But when they reached SPCA, Mango was put in a plastic crate and drenched with his own bloodied urine swishing around in the crate! and he was a sorry sight!
He was bleeding from his lips and chin, his right leg and arm were fractured out of alignment and he kept yowling in a hoarse voice.
He obviously couldn't move and was definitely NOT "OK" like the SPCA said!

The SPCA staff then explained to Uncle Jeffrey that if nobody claims the cat after "a few days", they have to put it to sleep due to space constraints. A few days???? No matter how badly injured the animal is, it would be left in a plastic crate drenched in its own feces and urine to suffer for a "few days"???
At least I know now, what SPCA is about. SIGH.

So my mum paid the staff $30 for admin fees and rushed Mango to the hospital.


Today, I picked my Mum up from home after I knocked off and went to see Mango.


Mango's bandaged left hand is on a drip. His limp right hand is the fractured one.
He may look fine, but actually he isn't.


His radius and ulnar are both fractured, and the ligament connecting the paw to the forearm is dislodged.
The surgeon & vet recommended surgery, which would cost $3800, excluding the hospitalisation fees and etc, which could well amount to $5000 *gasp*


Put on Ringer's Lactate for hydration because he refused to eat and hasn't eaten/drank anything since Monday's injury partly due to his inured face.


This is the drain where my mum's neighbours put Mango on before SPCA came to take him away, with a puddle of his blood in it.



Right now, Mango is not fit for surgery yet due to his haematuria and dehydration which leads to possible electrolyte imbalances and abnormal blood chemistry.
My mum is waiting to speak to the surgeon and vet in charge of Mango tomorrow before further decisions can be made regarding his care plan.

And now with my Mum's "youngest son" hospitalised, with her sick with worry, getting busy with CNY bakings & stuff, plus my own set of insane schedule, I can't help but wonder what kind of CNY this year is gonna be.
I'm just wishing that things will go like clock work and be generally uneventful than it already is.

Whatever it is, I just hope he wont be put to sleep. Poor Mango.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Busy start to an intensively busy year

I started school this week. That's right - Mummy has gone back to the books.
In case you're wondering, I have 2 Diplomas, and now I am doing my Bachelor of Science.
I had initially wanted to take up Psychology, majoring in Childhood Learning or the sort (I'm sick of doing Geriatric nursing already).
However, I decided to take up my area of work instead because with Nursing, I could branch into Paediatrics, but with Psychology, I couldn't branch into Nursing.

Time to brace up and get my act together for an extremely insane year ahead!
It's only the 1st week and I've been loaded with heaps of e-learning and a 200-word assignment -__-"
I sat with Baby Kai in the living room, my notes and highlighters all over the place, and Baby Kai in his rocker.

How do I feel about school?
I feel young again, being a student comes with privileges like cheaper canteen food and of course, forging new friendships. I ran into my ex-classmate, and made new friends with fellow TTSH colleagues.
My lecturers are all Australians and they deliver their lectures humorously.
On the other hand, inevitably, I feel anxious that I will not be able to catch up with my school work, what with Baby Kai and my fulltime job on my plate as well.

Ok, let's hope I will stay sane and breeze through this semester first!
Other than school, I have to sort out the following by CNY:

- prepare and pack Baby Kai's travel food rations. According to an email from Australian Embassy, Baby Kai is allowed 1 opened tin of milk powder, and all other food items must be sealed in jars (or tins).
- send an official email to school requesting for Leave of Absence during CNY due to my being overseas.
- pack Baby Kai's and my luggage.
- bring Baby Kai to Dr Simon for his travel meds.
- get my 200-word assignment done.