Oh and another photo, this time a collage:

Hey... nearly a year since the last post? I can't believe it! Time is whizzing by. In the interim, I've conceived and am on the way to delivering my next baby : ) - due Aug 15. It's a girl! : )

In the meantime, I actually caved in and signed baby up for playgroup, in mandarin, no less! I don't think he's learnt ANY chinese, but I'm not too bothered. All I really hope to do is create a positive attitude to chinese, so that when he does have to learn it, he can remember having fun with it when young.

Anyway, our little man is 19 months old... I gave up online blogging in favor of good ol pen and paper, because I want to give him (and his sister) these diaries when they are older. But I haven't been too good with that either, I update once every 3 weeks - which is fine for baby X, as there's not much exciting to tell her right now.

So here are some piccies, one at his first birthday, and the other, most recent taken a month ago on his last day of class ...

Just came back from Talks in the City, organised by Adam Road Presbytarian. They've just started a new series, called conversations with God. Todays' talk was on worship, reading from Malachi 1. I'm glad I've started going again - it's been hard to focus on sermons on Sunday, because of baby; Also, I get to meet my ex-colleagues : ). In an hour, will be bringing baby to ICA, to get his passport done. We're planning a trip with my in-laws to Perth... I hope we actually get to go. Army has dreadful habit of interfering with all our plans. Seems like every trip we have ever tried to take, hubby will get a callback just before, ruining everything...

Have to give him his medicine first though... : ( Brought him to our ped on Monday, because he seemed to be wheezing again. He has been having a chest problem continuously since he turned 7 months! Seems like I've visited the Dr every 2 weeks since then. So anyway, Dr thinks he has bronchial passageway sensitivity, which could lead to asthma. Apparently, from 9-18 mths, when babies immune systems will tend to be lower, he might come down with a cough every month! : (.

So, its back on the nebuliser again... we have to sing non-stop while he's on it, or else he gets very upset. I don't know if he's afraid, because its a noisy machine, or if he's annoyed to have to stay still for so long. So everyone sits around and we try not to have any breaks between songs. Poor baby... he has a very deep and throaty voice now.


My favorite photo of baby - taken in Jan this year : )

Baby is nine months and a half, and isn't crawling yet!!! He manages to get around by twirling round and round on his bum - its very circuitious, but it eventually gets him there. Whether his destination is intented or a fluke, I'm still not sure :P. He sometimes tries to reach over for something, and gets into a promising pre-crawl stance - but instead of pushing off on just one leg, he has to push off on both, and ends up diving for the thing...

I went to Babycenter.com to see if there were other non-crawlers out there, and was very reassured to find some. However, I sometimes wonder if its worth trawling through the boards, because for every supportive and reassuring post I find, there will be another one that makes me feel all anxious or annoyed. One post that really put me off was one titled, "People are constantly underestimating my 6 mth old!". The mother lists all her genius baby's achievements and grouses about how terribly annoying it is to have to say, "No, my baby isn't 1 year old, she's only 6 mths - she's very clever for her age". Yes. And people will JUST insist on finding something to be unhappy about!

Hate comparisons, but also very aware that fact I am conscious of it means I'm guilty of it myself : P . Poor baby mine - its a very bad habit - I've always been hard on myself, and it looks like I may be carrying it over to my baby too... But one thing I'm glad Ive been able to resist (or perhaps I'm just too lazy is reason) - is signing him up for all manner of enrichment / yoga / playgroup type things. I KNOW, he is only 9 months, but there are people I know who signed theirs up when they were 6 months! I'm not saying there's anything wrong with signing kids up for such things - the problem is the motivation underlying the signing up. For me (and I won't jump to conclusions about other people), the motivation would primarily be "argh, everyone doing, I also must do", which I don't want to give in to.

My memory is crumbling!! I was trying to be too clever, and shift my important mails from my yahoo account - too much spam! - so I set the "reply to" e-mail as my gmail account. Then promptly forgot about it and blithely continued checking my yahoo mail for replies. Was feeling offended for past five days at total lack of response to e-mails, untl this a.m. when, on a whim, decided I should finally use my lonely, unclicked gmail shortcut on the bookmark bar. Horrors. Realise that just as I have been walking around feeling slightly offended, so have my correspondants - and more justifiably so. Worse, I don't know how to "reply all" on gmail... (ok, its because i didn't really bother to look too hard, not because I'm a total idiot, alright.. )... so, there are several still out of the loop...

It's our fourth wedding anniversary today! I forgot - again... My hubby reminded me on Sunday. Isn't it dreadful? But I guess I should be thankful its not the other way around, with me always remembering and my husband always forgetting... because he's male, he doesn't get all hurt and play silly mind games about it, viz, telling me instead of not telling me and waiting til the actual day to see if I remember or not. I KNOW this is what girls do, because some of my friends have said so...

So, we're going out for a nice dinner tonight.

Isn't the photo lovely? Made him a jeep using the Mexacomac (or something) toy, and he loves it.

So anyway...

Feeling a llittle defeated today. I hate when I get this way. I could feel this latest attack creeping up on me all weekend... It's pointless, probably reinforcing, if I do what I am about to - although I'm hoping it will work out to the contrary and actually be catarthic. Here goes then, a list of things I'm feeling defeated about:

1. Baby's skin problem - just diagnosed today. It actually looks better, but starting last week, he suddenly erupted in full body rash. It's worst on his face, red, splotchy, rough and patchy. We ruled out food allergy, bathing / detergent products. Our ped said it was probably viral and gave him some antihestemine for the symptoms. Today, my dad made me bring him to a dermatologist who said it was eczema.

2. Baby's upbringing - Is baby too attached to maid? I'll say equally. I feel that I hand him over to her quite often in the day. It would drive me mad not to... I feel awful, because she has housework to do too, and I essentially hand him over so I can chill out (like now). Another, he's getting so irritable / unsociable. He insists on being carried nine times out of ten, he cries with strangers, he cries when I get up from his side (to do something inocuous, like fetch a book from his cupboard). I worry that I'm not doing enough to stimulate him - not playing all the games listed in my Gymboree 100 developmental activities for babies, not talking enough when I'm with him, not bringing him out enough, not teaching him sign language (!! - which I taught to my nephew)

3. My uselessness - basically, my day consists of bits when I'm with baby, and bits when I'm not. In those bits I'm not, I'm essentially doing nothing; and in the bits I am, as outlined in 2., I think I suck at! So, what happened to the housewife that would bake cookies and do lots of crafts with her kids? It was an extremely optimistic, very unrealistic, unlikely to be transmuted to reality, fantasy.

4. My laziness - ditto, above, re: bits I'm not with baby.

5. A glum household - I really lost a lot of joy. I know its not being close in my walk with God. And it's spilled over and infects my husband, my baby, our helper.

Okay. I need a perspective change desparately. I KNOW the key to 1-5 is my walk with God, or, more accurately over the past months, my walk away from God... I'm a little encouraged to report managing to do a devotion today but am reserving celebrations for now as I need to see how long I manage to sustain this... ARGH, again, doing things in my own strength, see what I mean about a need for a perspective change?

Praying for better things.

Day after National Day...

Using my new iMac : ). Though, when I think how much we spent on it, makes me blanche. I wonder if this is how everyone else feels - I think I actually enjoy wanting something more than the actual possession of it. The wanting in it iself isn't even all that enjoyable to start with, because, obviously, you are in a state of dissatisifaction, there is something you think you lack... but married with that is the pleasure of anticipating the item and imagining all the cool stuff you're going to do with it, which is kind of fun.

Then you actually buy it, and that feels good for, maybe, the first few hours or so. Then the novelty starts to wear off, and before you know it, its just another thing in your life .

Having a lot of stuff actually bothers me. I really liked when I was in university, the feeling that all that was essential to me was packed in one suitcase, and some of that I could also do without. The problem is, every new thing I get, becomes something else I can't do without, and will be painful to not have. For example, anime DVDs. In uni, I had a few fav books, cds and that was it for entertainment. Now, I can't imagine not having my DVDs or my computer games, on top of the books.... so, I can no longer pack my life into one suitcase. It has since spread out to fill an entire 1700 sq ft flat.

And, more stuff! We now own a new apartment. Well, according to my husband, the bank, the developer and the governement... We also have a massive new loan. I've always been really conservative with money - provincial in attitude - so, I'm leaving it to God, and trusting in the good sense of my husband. I don't think we'll ever live in it though, as we're hoping to rent - maybe after 2 years, although by that time our family may have grown and there's no way I can imagine us squeezing into that place. It is 500 sq ft smaller than our exisiting place!!

Ok... have to go..