Spoils of the day.

Just a quick note here before I hit the sack UTTERLY and COMPLETELY exhausted from baby shopping. So far, half of our shopping list has been crossed out. Another half to go..



You know what they say...no pain no gain!

Shop till you drop...

Well, pushing aside the minor inconvenience of not know the sex of the baby, we HAVE to get our act together and start our baby shopping now. I have been so busy lately with work (averaging about 60 hours per week) that I haven't started any baby shopping yet. However, just today, it shocked me that Wendy's 37 weeks going on to 38 weeks now! We really don't have much time left to shop.

So, we went to Babies'R'Us, Superstore and Walmart the other day and boy...it was really an information overload. There were rows and rows of baby products and we didn't know where to begin. I mean, just bottles alone, there must have been at least 10 brands and types out there. Wendy wants to breastfeed, so, do we need a 9 oz. or 4 oz.? What kinds of silicone nipple? Are there special types for switching the baby from breast to bottle then back to breast again? Which brands? Playtex and Avent seems to get pretty good reviews in that it will not leak so much air into the bottle. So on and so forth. At the end of the day, we were just confused and didn't commit to anything. We then came home, browsed through the Ineternet, did our research and created our own shopping list. Armed with this, we are just about to head out again to brave the baby superstores out there.

Will let all of you know the results of that soon...

Omigosh! It's coming!

Well, went to the Doctor's today and boy did the message hit home. The baby IS coming and it is coming soon as well. The doctor said that the baby's head has engaged the cervix, so he is on the way out!

A little interesting note, according to the doctor, 1% of the population has early babies, 19% are on-time and 80% are late babies. However, she said that based on the position of the baby now, it seems that the baby might be an early baby or on-time. However, apart from this, all's well.

I supposed I have to get cracking soon. This thing is coming and there is no way to stop him now!

One, Two or Three!

This blog entry was brought about through an interesting conversation I had with Wendy a few days ago. The age old question of whether we should have a plethora number of kids or maybe just cap at 1?

My god...suddenly, a picture of many running kids changing my entire peaceful existance into a complete cacophony. Personally, I don't think I'm quite ready for this level of intrusion yet. I really do shudder at this thought.

Well, we ended our discussion with an agreement that if this turns out to be a boy, we might just cap our family with this one child. However, if this turns out to be a girl, we will at most try one more and regardless of the sex of the second child, we will definitely cap at two.

Anymore, we will just have to wait and see. See how disruptive bringing up a baby will be then we'll decide if we should bring up more.

She's WHAT?

Just a quick update here. Could you imagine, Wendy's 8 months on? Does she look like it?



I think she is tiny.... but oh well...how would I know...afterall, this is my first.

Oh Canada!

Canada, its in my blood, as proclaimed by the famous Canadian songstress Joni Mitchell. After being here in Canada for the last 15 years, my outlook for this country has changed. Initially, I came out here with every intention of going home to Malaysia immediately after my tertiary education. Home was still Malaysia and my "kampung" was still Parit, Perak. However, as fate would play out, I was initially seduced to stay on in Canada by an incredible job offer and opportunity to work for Canada's only Space company with promise of sexy projects like the Canadarm. As years flew by, I finally decided to obtain my permanent residency status, initially as a form of convenience so that I do not need to renew my work visa every year.

However, after the many years I have been here, I have started to believe in this country. My political outlook turned from conservatism to a firm believer in social democracy.

Hmmmm...why am I telling you all these? Well, yesterday was another time I saw social democracy in action. Since Wendy has been diagnosed as being gestational diabetic, she has had to attend a diabetic clinic offered for free in the Burnaby Hospital. As healthcare is a public service (in Canada, there are no private healthcare facilities), a doctor, a dietician and a registered nurse was assigned to her in the class, again, for free. She was also provided with all her diabetic supplies from the blood glucose electronic testing kit also for free. What is more impressive, although these healthcare workers are public servants, you can truly feel their pride in their work and their professionalism. You can feel that they care about the wellbeing of their patients. They really do. I do feel that ALL Canadians are in good hands if all healthcare workers provide this same level of care and service. Wendy was even given emergency phone numbers to reach any of the 3 healthcare workers assigned to her. All these are public services!

That is why Canada is the country for me. That is why I believe in Canada and that is why I'm so happy that my little one is going to be born Canadian. I truly cannot think of another country that I would like to be in more than the one I'm in right here, right now.