City Exhibition 2007

Derod and I took Gabe down to Vivocity last Thursday for the opening ceremony of the City Exhibition 2007, an annual event organized by my previous company. To be specific, it was my job to organize the exhibition and for two years, it was my baby.

It seemed like it was just yesterday that the 2006 one took place. The student team and I worked really hard for it and I must say that I am quite proud of the final result. It's probably one of the most memorable events I've done, the kind that leaves a nice afterthought even after a year. Piggy called while we were entering the megamall from the carpark and she had to double check if it was the one I asked my parents to go down to support last year, and upon confirmation exclaimed "it's been one year already?!". Yes. Ditto that. It's another one of those points where I ask myself if I miss working.

In any case, all the teaching staff were very happy to see me, and of course, the little one was the centre of attention. But it was very nice to hear that they missed me and hoped I could still go back to contribute. But well, motherhood beckons haha. Anyway, we were due to leave for melaka the next day... more in the next post ; )

World's Yummiest Beverage

Guess who had a taste (probably quite a mouthful, actually) of his own pee pee?!?!

He did another of those overwhelming quantity pack of poo this morning and I was cleaning him up, and ready to pop him into the bathtub thereafter. Well, overwhelming quantity means lifting the butt higher up to clean the back and just at that moment, our friend gave a spray, aimed right at his face.

So clever... *yucks*

OK... You Win

These are the three shortlisted.

And after touch up... the final choice! He's gonna have to live with this for the next five years muahahahah

Journey Across the Causeway

We look a long long time in deciding to do this, and within 3 months, we have changed our minds quite a few times, enough for those around us to piak our behinds heheh. Anyway, since we psychoed P2 to go and derod is "curious how the experience would be like" to bring gabe up to the church camp, and other reasons, we decided to put in the application. It does come with quite a bit of hesitation since the drive will be at least 3 hours one way, with lots to pack along, and I'd probably have more to do when we come home. It doesn't help that our parents are very disapproving of this decision, which makes me kinda paranoid too. But well, here we go this Friday. Please say a short prayer for us and gabe, that he'll be ok and all :)

And to go across the causeway, gabe requires a passport. Not bad, it can be done within 3 working days if we submit an online application. So, we went about getting the passport picture taken, and since it requires a white background, we whipped out his cloth diaper and put his head on it while he laid on the bed. Took countless shots to get the "right" one and boy, did we have a great time laughing at the results. Here's the tip of the ice berg for your entertainment.

And this one's so cute, I just have to add it in, though it so doesn't make any sense to this post.

Smiling Gabe

By popular demand, here are some smiley pictures of Gabe.

Ok... this aint a smiley picture, but I put this up because it looks almost exactly like my baby picture... hehe

What a Shitty Mothers' Day

Today is my first mothers' day. Seriously, I can't believe that I'm a mother and celebrating today seems kind of awkward? sweet? strange? I can't really find words to describe the feeling. The church had the children present an item to all the mothers and each would bring a really nice hershey rose to his/her mum. I saw Jayce lead Charmaine to Trace and she offered the rose with a soft "happy mothers' day" as instructed by Jayce. That scene was so sweet, priceless. Meanwhile, derod was frantically walking around the sanctuary looking for his son, who was in the arms of ... actually, I don't really know. When he couldn't find gabe, he came to me (twice actually), asking "where is your son"? Finally he located the bundle and presented the rose to me. The Teos took a picture and I'll post it up when I've received it.

At lunch, my dear son's diaper overflowed (content is already mentioned in the title of this post), staining my brand new, white pants. The saga did not end here; the night was even more eventful.

Each night, the routine would involve derod giving gabe his last feed of the day, during/ after which, gabe will give his final blasts (yes they are that loud), we'd clean and wrap him up, come before God with our nightly prayers and then tuck him into bed. Tonight's blasts were longer in duration and gabe seemed pretty distracted from his drink. Both derod and I thought it wise to clean him up before offering the bottle again. So, we placed him on his cleaning mat and proceeded to open the diaper, when my hand brushed against something wet, and lo and behold, we found his shirt and half his back wet with poo; the diaper was soiled through and a huge amount had flowed backwards. It was a miracle derod did not even have a trace of poo on him. We were stunned, kind of lost as to what best to do. So we figured that though the risk of him catching a chill may be present, it would be best to take him to the sink and just rinse off whatever there was. It wasn't until the tap was running and his back touched the water did we realise it was really a bad idea. So, we trapped some water in the sink and placed him inside but the drainage was bad and poor gabe had to wait too long before clean water could fill the sink again. So we filled a small basin with water and tried to towel him when the fella decided to give a spray. That wets part of the toilet. Then derod said we should just place him on a towel on the mat and clean him up; sacrifice the towel and hopefully he'll be relatively clean with just the towel treatment. That we did, and proceeded to clean up the mess that was created after gabe was settled.

I was rinsing off the poo poo in the loo when derod came and proceeded to rattle off possible options for future occurances. He said this is a shit drill, and we should decide the course of action should this happen again in future.

For the record, though being first time parents means that we'll have many surprising encounters, the times that saw the both of us stunned involved gabe shitting. Gabe gave derod the experience of projectile shit even before he turned one month old.

So well, I'd say it's an eventful Mothers' Day :) and oh, I received a rose from "gabe" and another from derod.

Susceptibility

The flu bug is flying around again and quite a few family members have caught it, including myself this past week. It started with a bad sore throat followed by continuous sneezing fits and a really wet nose. I called my mil for SOS on Tuesday, asked her if she could come down to look after gabe so that I can quickly see a doctor before the flu bursts out in full fury, and also to prevent me from going too near him that day. She very kindly agreed and spent a full day with her grandson. Not so recovered, I took up the mothering job again on Wednesday. Derod and I prayed very hard that gabe will not catch any of the bad stuff that's been flying around. For your information, he's had pretty close shaves with those who are down due to the bug but escaped unscathed. I credit this entirely to God's grace. Falling sick at 2.5 months is not a good idea at all. Here's who he's been around with:

- Sick grandfather (derod's)
- Sick grandfather (cheoklet's)
- Sick cheoklet

Today, I'm feeling so much better, but you'll never know how germs work. So, still praying the little one will not have any brush with the bug.

Derod's Theories

I am not sure if it's the result of the Masters degree he's been pursuing, or whether it is just in his nature to come up with theories after detailed observation and analysis of situations, but derod has been coming up with theory after theory of gabe and his behaviour. I'm sharing only those more significant ones. You be the judge on how weird they are.

1. To put gabe to sleep, one doesn't have to pat his butt or walk around a lot. One simply has to move the elbow that supports his head a little, such that his head wobbles. It's the wobbling that makes him knock out. Verdict: it works.

2. The kitchen white light puts gabe to sleep. Verdict: not proven.

3. Gabe's not rejecting the milk bottle. You just need to tap his tongue with the teat when he wails in rejection and he'll take it happily again. Verdict: new theory; need more time to prove its validity.

Gabe Says...

Gabe has lots of things to say, or at least that's what we conclude from the endless changing expressions. Caught one series for your viewing.