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.

On a more somber mood...

Well, this week has been a rather difficult one for us all here. We have just got Wendy's GTT 3 hour test back (Glucose Test for gestational diabetes). She failed the GTT 1 hour test quite a number of weeks ago. However, we thought it was relatively common to fail that and not fail the 3 hour test. Unfortunately, it was not so in our case. Wendy inexplicably failed her 3 hour test as well. That means, it is going to be a very busy final 2 months for us now. Wendy's need to attend a Diabetes Clinic and potentially, she might have to test her blood up to 7 times a day. In the meantime, she has to cut out all sugar from her diet and cut down on her starch intake (i.e. only a small cup of rice and the rest vegetables).

Thus, it is a mad scramble to change our lifestyles and start buying and cooking less rice and more of the different kinds of vegetables and meats. It might not be a bad thing, at the very least, this is DEFINITELY a heather diet.

Oh well, one more hurdle that we can definitely overcome ... Wish us luck!

Test driving...

Hmmm, I got my first taste in carrying a really young infant (1 month old) yesterday at my good friend Pam's place. She has an absolute lovely and adorable 1 month old. Well, I decided then to give this infant caring thing a test drive. Unfortunately, quite unlike test driving a car, this one, I can't just kick the tires, bring it once round the block and then just walk away if I don't like it. I'm literally stuck with my baby arriving in 8 weeks whether I like it or not.

In anycase, I picked Brett (Pam's son) up....so far so good. He then started making faces and started the Nyet-Nyet (crying) face and was about to wail. Fortunately for me, I remember how my Mom pacified by younger brother like some 20 years ago and I tried the same tactics. I started rocking Brett gently in my arms and that worked! I pacified him! Simply amazing! He started cooing at me and ... and ... do I detect a smile? :)

I started to get the hang of this...hey..I can get used to this...this isn't so bad afterall.... then .... THEN I felt some bowel movement from the little one... So, right there and then...the test drive was over... Off he goes back to his Mom. Okay, one step at a time... Next week, diaper change, but for now, I can leave Pam's place warm with the thought that I'm really not so bad with kids..

Changing lifestyles, are we ready?

Well, the weather in Vancouver has been in the extremes the last few weeks. It is either shockingly cold or so wet and warm....Regardless, both extremes just killed our appetite to head out for some outdoor activities. That then leaves a great many hours lazing around in bed at home and of course, lots of time chatting and discussing about how our lives might change once the baby comes.

Now, the funniest thing is that the strongest image that hit home with the baby was when both of us were lying in bed and then suddenly, we realise that there is going to be another person, living being who is going to be sleeping right in the middle. We both shudder at that thought ... whatever that is, we are still not used to that fact yet. Further more, it suddenly hit us, we will never again in our young lives have the opportunity to go on vacations alone. I'm suddenly feeling that we have just been robbed off our privacy...and am really not used to the fact that there will essentially be a stranger intruding into our lives. I guess this is just because we haven't met our child in the flesh yet... Maybe all these will change once we see him in person (at least I'm hoping that that will be the case).

ARRRGGGHHH... I still have lots of things to do and lots of places to see... I have not seen the waterways of Venice, the renaissance architecture of Rome, the Greek Pathanon, trekked across the Silk route, seen India's Taj Mahal, Cambodia's Angkor Watt, Guilin's majestic limestone hills, Jordan's Petra ruins, swam in the dead sea etc. I haven't lived!

So, changing lifestyles, are we ready or not? I guess the answer will come once we come face to face with the little one...

Nature or Nurture...

Hmmm....the age old question, Nature or Nurture? No, I'm not talking about the sexual orientation of a person, but rather, being a genius, is it really nature or is it nurture where the parents can influence this?

I was having a very interesting lunch time conversation the other day with Wendy and Siong Ee (sister) with regards to this particular subject. What I have heard is that most children geniuses display an intense interest in adult subjects, be it mathematics, physics, history etc., at an early age. I then wonder if having a child prodigy is a matter of exposing the child to all things adult? Force the child to bypass anything childish. For example, from an infant, only play big classical pieces to him like Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto 2 & 3, Schumann Piano Concerto, all the 9 Beethoven Symphonies, all 9 Dvorak Symphonies, Puccini Operas etc. Nothing like old MacDonald have a farm crap... Or in other cases, expose the child very early on to Classical Chinese history and Classical Chinese texts, Political Science theories, read Scientific American as a bedside story etc...

You get my picture. Will this nurture a genius? Most of the time I see that children were not given an opportunity to explore their scientific/mathematical/historical etc interests because their parents do not expose these things to them at an early enough age.

Maybe I'm on a totally wrong track. Maybe geniuses are nature, hence there is nothing one can do to nurture one. Maybe Mozart was born with a very intense love for music and without that, no amount of exposure to music at whatever age can bring about this genius.

Well, anyone who is reading this, do give me your opinions by dropping a comment below. I am curious to see what you think. Also, if we have any child psychologist reading, I'm really interested in your opinions...

That Elusive Connection...

Human nature is a funny thing sometimes. I have read in many places that it takes a while for the parents to bond with an unborn child. Both, myself and Wendy have believed this fact for most of the pregnancy .... till yesterday. Actually, we have never felt much connection to the baby, so much so that both of us started to wonder if we can be good and loving parents.

However, things definitely changed yesterday. Yesterday, Wendy suddenly told me that it was very strange in that our baby was no longer active and that she is feeling few and far between fetal kicks. She felt this strange turn of events a couple of days ago and it seemed that the baby was moving less everyday. Upon hearing this, I was at a loss with all manner of horrible thoughts going through my mind, the worse (which was extremely silly, now that I come to think of it) being, "What about the umbilical cord wrapped around our baby and strangling him in the process?" I panicked. Both, myself and Wendy then spent countless hours last night coaxing the baby to give us some response. After nearly 1 hour of trying (with all manner of soothing words, poking the belly etc etc..) we were finally rewarded by a series of very strong kicks and life's back to normal again. I didn't know whether to laugh of to cry once I felt the baby movements again....This is one moody baby indeed! Or is it lazy? :-)

In anycase, my point is, for the first time in my life, I felt this parental bond and boy, is it strong!

I think we are both going to be alright afterall...and yes, I have confidence that Wendy and myself will be great parents....

Ahhh...the difference between a man and a woman..

Ahh...the difference between a man and a woman. Women just do not understand the men's almost animalistic attraction to cool gadgets. There I was thinking, "Now that we have our crib, stroller and infant car seat, what is the next most important thing on the list?" It's a no brainer...of course a......CAMCORDER! How else are we going to capture the birth of our little one and record the thousands of hours of home video capturing every imaginable moment of your little one...then being able to bore the hell out of visiting friends and relatives? :-) But seriously folks, I was contemplating just using my Canon G3 digital camera but the video quality there was just horrendous. So, only a camcorder will do. Naturally, I started my whole research into which camcorder to buy. After doing about several weeks' worth of research, I have down selected a few models all ranging from mid CAD$400s to CAD$1000s. Knowing my wife and how she might react to me getting a really expensive model, I decided to "compromise" and bought a low end JVC model but yet obtained www.camcorderinfo.com's best camcorder under US$400. Then I saw a sale from A&B Sound here advertising it for...god forbid...CAD$397!!! Such a good price that I was surprised that they still had any left! The sales person I spoke to over the phone told me that he has but one unit left. So, without any hessitation in the heart, I plopped down my creditcard, read him the number and told him that I would collect it the next available oppotunity. One would have thought that I made a really wise decision indeed....

Well, guess what my wife had to say about this when I finally collected the camera from the store and brought it home (thinking I would surprise her with it)? Surprise her I did indeed. She screamed bloody murder! Almost went balistic over the fact that I actually coughed up CAD$400 for a camcorder when we still have yet to buy baby bottles, huggies (or pampers for that matter), crib mattress, diaper bag, diaper genie etc. etc. Ahh...like I said, what does a woman know about a man's soul and his inate attraction to everything and anything electronic? ...

Ready, steady, GO!!!!

Ahhh, shopping... You should know what I'm talking about...baby shopping. Both, Wendy and myself thought that it was about time we started our shopping for our baby. Well, being the engineer and the geek in this marriage, I started my research into the perfect stroller, car seat and crib a few weeks ago. Finally, after all the digging around on the Internet and also speaking to my co-workers here, I have down selected the following few items.

Strollers:
1) Phil and Ted's All Terrain Buggy - model E3
(https://secure.intellihost.co.nz/philandteds.com/framesetstroller.htm)

2) The Mountain Buggy - model Urban
(http://www.mountainbuggy.com)

3) Peg Perego Pliko P3
(http://www.pegperego.com)

Well, after lots of arguments...errr...no, I mean, civilised discussion with Wendy, we decided to save some money and went for the Peg Perego Pliko Completco. Actually, my original choice was the Phil and Ted's E3 buggy. However, that priced at about CAD$650, Wendy would just NOT listen to the many solid arguments I had about how technologically wonderful the E3 was. Then I thought I could convince her to look at the Urban Mountain Buggy but that too ran at about the same price point. IMHO, both those strollers are really in a class of its own, extremely versatile, light and extremely mobile. However, that's that I suppose. I gotta kiss my dream strollers good bye *wiping a tear from my eye*. Instead, we settled on the Peg Perego's Plikomatic / Pliko P3. I got entire stroller, the Primo Viaggo car seat and the optional rain gear and the winter boot. The following is a picture of the stroller that we settled for.



The reason why we ended up with this was the fact that it was light (15 lbs). Also, all 4 wheels with suspension and there doesn't seem to have a weight limit. Its construction seems to be much better than the other more usual brands like Graco, Evenflo, Cosco, Safety1st etc... (Oh year, by the end of my research, I really REALLY knew my strollers). The only complain I have is the Primo Viaggo infant car seat. it seems to be ergonically unfriendly for the parents to carry the seat ... and boy...it is HEAVY.

Now, moving on to cribs, we were not too particular here. Any cribs made after 1990 in Canada or North America is going to be a good and safe crib. After researching into the different brands out there, we decided that we wanted to buy Canadian. Why not support a Canadian company if possible, rather than buying Swedish or American. We were particularly attracted to a local brand called Storkcraft (http://www.storkcraft.com). Coincidentally, Storkcraft is a true local company. Not only is it a Canadian company, it is actually a Vancouver company with its world headquarters located here in Richmond! The Bays here in Metrotown was having a pretty good Boxing Week sale and we decided to support yet another Canadian company and bought it from there. This crib is a convertible and can be converted from a crib to a todler bed to a day bed. Pretty cool actually...check it out..



We have just managed to get all of these home and they are sitting out in the garage for now. Will attempt to fix all of them up closer to the due date...

Personally though, I never thought that I could ever become so caught up over being a Dad..... Quoting Martha Stewart, "It's a good thing" I suppose..

Who's that? Introducing...

Well, this is the day we have been waiting for, our first meeting with our little one.  We went off to the medical imaging lab for our first ultrasound appointment with great anticipation wondering primarily if our baby is in good health.  However, lets be honest, we were really more excited over the possibility of knowing what the sex of the baby is.  This is week 18 in Wendy’s pregnancy.  Following doctor’s orders, Wendy downed two big glasses of water just before the appointment and held her bladder in order for the lab to get better pictures of our baby.  It seemed like hours before Wendy’s name was called.  We both stood up upon hearing Wendy’s name and guess what?  The father (i.e. yours truly here) were told not to follow the mother into the lab until much later.  Thus, I had to continue waiting for what seemed like hours before the lab technician came out to fetch me.  Once inside, what an amazement!  Right there on the monitor is our baby…looking so peaceful and serene.  No matter how many times one has seen movies with scenarios like this, nothing can prepare you for the euphoria you feel upon meeting and being able to say hello to your baby for the very first time.  So, with no further ado, introducing…err…name is not known yet…


Awww….I think he is trying to suck his thumb…


Now, he is REALLY sucking his thumb.


Baby from another view…  Now what’s the sex?

Okay, now for the million dollar question, what is the sex of our little one?  Seriously, your guess is as good as ours.  We tried asking the lab technician that and the reply we got was that she was not allowed by BC law to reveal the sex of the foetus.  The reason she said was that the BC Government had to change the law because too many Indo-Canadian families were aborting their babies if their babies were not of the favoured sex (read BOY).  DARN!  Just because of a few stupid parents (not to mention heartless), we now in BC are no longer allowed to know the sex of our unborn child?  How fair is that?  Oh well, this is something that we will have to live with I guess…..

Finally, we jumped onto the blogging bandwagon!

Well, finally, here we are, we have decided to jump on the blogging bandwagon.  The main reasons why we decided to start these pages are two fold.  The first reason is because we have finally figured out that this is the best way we can keep our extended family in Malaysia and around the world appraised with our latest happenings.  Secondly, as many of you who are reading this will know that we are expecting a new bundle of joy this coming March and we figured that many of our anxious Malaysian relatives and friends would like to know how we are progressing here.  So, with no further ado, here it is, our latest happenings…