Last Antenatal Class - Suit of Armour Needed

Well we had our final antenatal class tonight, 'Video Night'. Let me tell you antenatal video night brings new meaning to video night. I'm glad I didn't bring the popcorn! I know more about how a baby enters the outside world than any male really wants to know! The two main ways (keeping this PG rated for non knowing male) is the traditional / natural way (drugs optional) and the Roman way. Now the traditional / natural way seems to involve much work & noise. The term 'Noise' can be translated into screaming, yelling, physical & verbal abuse (aimed at the husband and doctors), weird breathing patterns, things breaking (waters etc) and all the pain associated with squeezing a melon through . . . you get the picture. The Roman way also know as the Julius Caesarean Section involves much less work & noise, however I'm told pain and recovery time is much greater after the Roman way. So you may ask yourself, do I want early or late pain! From what the Doc tells us if Junior doesn't turn the kid will be getting an early Latin lesson.

P.S I'm thinking medieval might be my best approach, i.e. does anyone have a full suit of armour for protection that I can borrow?

Week 33

We had another Doctor’s visit; we’re trying to break the record for frequent flyer / Visitor miles. This visit was all positive news, except as usual Junior is still in the breech position. The kid has had a growth spurt; Junior has passed the 2kg weight mark. Marika is still under doctor’s instructions to stay off her feet as much as possible. Not to worry I’m heading out tomorrow to buy her a stool so she can continue to make my dinner, wash the dishes and iron my shirts. Mmmm I might have to get a height adjustable stool with wheels to make her life a little easier. I’ll post another scan and belly photo to our site when I get a break from all my household duties, all that cooking & cleaning.

100% Juice from Concentrate

I have this habit when eating or drinking of reading the food container labels, there are some interesting details on them, some scary with you think, ooh I’m eating that! One of my favourites from Australia is of a juice tetra box, contents were described as “100% Juice from Concentrate” so if it from concentrate how can it be 100%, in truth the concentrate was 100% juice, however the tetra box only contained about 5% juice the other 95% was sugar & water. Since moving to Singapore I’ve had trouble finding normal tasting milk. Considering the island is quite small and there appears to be no dairy farms, you would assume all milk is imported, and from what I’ve see a lot comes from Australia. Anyhow getting back to my labels story, the so called fresh milk I purchased the other day reads “Made from Fresh Milk”, another reads “Plain Flavoured Milk” not sure what to make of these! Anyhow my search for normal tasting milk continues!

Second Last Antenatal Class

We had our second last antenatal class tonight, some exercises then a tour of the hospital's facilities (in relation of having a baby of course). The quality is a little poorer & more dated than we expected for a private hospital, I guess our expectations were based on that of Royal North Shore Private. You can either have a single or shared room, the rooms are the same size, thus the shared rooms are rather cosy, some might even say 'damn squashy'. We have reserved a single room (hopefully there is one available on the day). The delivery rooms or as I like to call them 'birthing chambers' have a rather scary looking bed (the term bed is used loosely here), however they have a really comfortable reclining chair for the husbands and access to Nitrous Oxide (N2O) gas, although I'm thinking I might have to fight with the wife for access to the N2O. The staff we have met seem nice or were they a patient from the psyche ward. Our last class involves watching birthing video, I've ordered Prozac and several boxes of tissues, somebody told me popcorn was not suitable for this type of video watching but I might smuggle in some snacks anyway.

Junior's First Wheels

We followed up our day of tripping around yesterday with another shopping outing; this time to a bargain basement baby crap sale at one of the Orchard Rd shopping complexes centres. Baby stuff as far as the eyes could see, mind you I couldn’t see very far, the thought of entering this den of shopping madness caused sweat from fear to run down my face into my eyes, thus when you are rolling around on the floor yelling like Gollum ‘It burns! It burns!’ you really can't see very far at all, plus all the people circling around me and staring kinda blocked the view.

Well after I recovered we entered the den of evil, oops sorry the lovely basement shopping experience and purchased Junior’s first teddy bear and a few other items. After a little more non basement shopping we had lunch and headed back into the den of evil, oops shopping heaven to purchase Junior’s first set of wheels, it was a pram and baby capsule combo, don’t worry I made sure there was a cup holder for my coffee, oh yeah and there’s lots of room for Junior and baby stuff too!

It's Grown, Now a Proud 109 Centimetres – Star Wars Expo

Well the belly stayed around the 104cm mark for a few weeks, however this week saw some big growth in both baby and belly! Marika has been given the OK to move around a little more but not to over do it. So today we did the long trek out to the Science Centre to see the Star Wars expo, we missed seeing it in Sydney and we almost missed seeing it here. Very enjoyable, I guess it helps being Sci-Fi nuts. I think I was a bit more of the Star Wars nerd with my comments like, ‘look at the funky model of the Mon Calamari cruiser’, ‘ It’s not a lifesaver it’s a lightsabre’ (or lightsaber in US English).

By saying the long trek, I was talking in Singaporean terms. See we live towards the middle of the island which is about 43 km wide, and our long trek was to East Jurong, which coincidentally is on the western side of the island, so we travelled about 20 km. mmmm I have relatives that drive for more than 20 km before the reach the end of their driveway. How are we going to survive travelling when we’re back in Australia?

Riding the MRT - Why do I stand out

Riding the MRT to work each morning my mind wanders to avoid thinking about the sardine factor of peak hour trains. Today I was thinking about ‘Why do I stand out here’. Is it the fact that when I look around the train I’m head and shoulders above nearly everyone else; maybe! Is it that the handles hanging all the way along the centre of the train swing innocently above people head while they smack me in the middle of my back; maybe! Is it that I was wearing a rather loud Hawaiian style green shirt in honour of St Patrick’s Day; maybe! I don’t think any of these are the true answer, I think it’s the fact that I don’t spend the whole time playing with my phone, MP3 players or Blackberry (or as I like to call them Mulberries). As a matter of fact, I usually don’t even get my phone out, even if it’s ringing, mmmm that could be because I can’t hear the dang thing ringing due to the train noise. Maybe I should buy an MP3 player & Mulberry and join the sheep, aarh maybe not!

Week 31

Well we had our 31 week Doctor’s visit. Junior's growth is in the average range. His / her femur is quite long, so we might have a long baby. The breech position is still the flavour of the month. Will that change?

Welcome Holly Naomi, Congrats Kylie & Adam

Congratulations to my cousin Kylie and her hubby Adam on the birth of their first child, Holly Naomi a good sized baby girl weighting 3.8kg & 53 cm long. We wish them all the best for the future.

Week 30 & other odds & sods

We may have been in the third trimester for a little while now, but today we reached the third quarter mark, the start of Week 30 of 40. When you think about it, that makes its 9 & 1/3 months, not nine months like people suggests.

Today on my way to work I saw my first bendy bus near Raffles Hotel, what special about that you may ask, well nothing really, I just thought to myself, I haven’t see any here before!

I had to get some money out of an ATM today and it got me thinking, why don’t they have $20 notes here, I miss not having $20’s. On a (another) side issue I’ve noticed that polymer notes are starting to creep in here, I’ve only noticed polymer $2 & $10. I’ve never had a polymer $5 or $50; I’ve only see $100 from a distance (similar colour to the $10) and I’ve never seen the $500, $1000 or $10,000 notes. I keep trying to get a $10,000 note out of the ATM but the dang thing keeps telling me I don’t have sufficient funds, whatever that means!

For those that are interested Singapore currency consist of 5c, 10c, 20c, 50c & $1 coins and $2, $5, $50, $100, $500, $1000 & $10,000 notes. As noted above my attempts to confirm that the larger notes exist have met with disagreements between myself and those dang hole in the wall ATM’s thingies.

Wedding Congratulations to Michelle & Greg

Congratulations to Michelle & Greg on their wedding today. We look forward to seeing the photographs when we are in Australia after Junior is born. We hope all goes / went well.

Jason Survived the First Week

Well it’s Friday afternoon and I’ve almost survived my first week at work in Singapore. I’ve haven’t really untaken any real work. Several meeting, surfing the SMU website and intranet. Researching work related aspects of how Singapore organization function etc, all this while listening to Tripe M Sydney via the net and the occasional Skype chat with friends. I have a tendency to destroy my work PC’s in about 1 ½ years. We today is the first day that my PC has worked correctly for the whole day. Dodgy LAN port, video card and RAM. I’ll see what I can do to the hard drive and monitor next week. In my defense it’s not a new PC, it’s about 6 years old, so I should be able to finish it off within the month! You know how I’ve mentioned that Singapore is warm and shops all seem to have there air-con set to freezing, well the office is the same, it’s nice when you arrive, but by lunch its dang cold, and by 5pm I’m looking for penguins under my desk as the office has been converted to a little piece of the Antarctic. Mental note, must bring winter coat to work, mmmm where did I store my winter mitts?

Junior has been quite active this week, moving his/her little groove all around the Buddha belly. Not much of a kicker but likes slithering around and flexing its body.

Week 29 Doctor's Visit

We had another visit to the doctor today, week 29 so I’m told. Junior is growing well, in the middle of the average growth chart for most aspect, belly is above average size, just like dad. Junior weights about 1.4kg, lots more growth before the done bell dings, I guess the weight should double plus a little more. Sorry, no new scan picture today.

End to the Jason Relaxation Lifestyle

Well today is a sad day in the life of Jason Relaxation Lifestyle, why you ask. Well he was foolish enough to go back to work! He has taken the position of Document Specialist at Singapore Management University. What is a Document Specialist, good question, I guess that something Jason will have to work out, and quickly!