of being 7 months

28 weeks today! that makes me what, 7 months pregnant?

a summary of my 7 months so far:

- i've developed a big craving for sushi... bad, bad.
- also developed a sudden craving for tea - be it teh ais, teh o ais, early grey milk tea (with coffee jelly! :D), is it because of all that sugar? i dunno. but i really shouldn't be drinking all that ice -___-
- my eczema has been flaring up like nobody's business, it's the itchy and scratchy show all over again. i threw out my Palmer's Cocoa butter and opted for my Bio Oil, i think this works wonders compared to the latter.
- i got gastric twice while i was in Prague (omg it was hell, i couldn't even enjoy my second zoo trip), i got gastric again a few weeks ago when i went without food for almost 12 hours (i had an early dinner and didn't sleep and my next food intake was only during breakfast).
- i get really bad back pains at times. and cramps. is that a sign of calcium deficiency? i dunno lah. or maybe because i'm not 25 anymore, haha.
- the baby's a whopping 1.1kg now. which means i still have room for tummy expansion. hands up to those who find the sight of potruding belly buttons simply weird.
- in total insanity-ness, Birdsong, Four Seasons and Ember got the boot (wrap talk here).
- waiting to see the Dr. seems to be getting longer and longer and longer =( i hope the new KPJ hospital nearby will be able to absorb some of DEMC's existing patients, i seriously don't want to be told that there's no available labor room while i'm experiencing real contractions later when i'm about to give birth.
- oh btw, tetanus jab sakit lah. i took it yesterday and my arm still feels numb until now. my Dr. tells me that this is the very same jab all newborns get during their first three months of life. ouch. no wonder them babies yell their lungs out.
- i have nothing to wear. like really. malas nak waste money on outfits i won't be wearing ever after i deliver.

so i've been figuring out what set bersalin is worth trying out this fourth time round. for the last three my mil got me the Minyak Afiat set, which i really didn't use (i like their shower gel, and the minyak afiat, but i wasn't too fond of some of the other stuff included in the set). i heard Tanamera was good. another friend of mine is using Nona Roguy. any suggestions?

(imgs source: google)

Nona Roguy

versus

Tanamera

also, Significant Other plans to get a new freezer, because the current one we have ices over like it's the North Pole, until icicles form -__- we practically have to use an ice pick to get stuff out once this happens. he's eyeing the chest freezer, while i'm hoping for the upright freezer. my only justification is that you get to organize things better with the drawers. but i think you can throw in more stuff if you get a chest freezer, no? besides, chest freezers are much more cheaper than the drawer type. also, with the new addition, i'm hoping to lengthen my EBM journey to 2 years this time instead of the standard 1 year (which was not by choice).

ok i'm done rambling. lol.

quality of movies gone down

i've watched quite a number of movies in the past month, and i can tell you i've been disappointed by quite a number of them. sigh. when will the big gunners show in cinemas???

Blackhat

- i find movies that tend to mix the Asian with the West, more often than not turn out to be simply put, one 'ugh' of a movie.
- the female character Lien in the movie was totally unnecessary. she didn't seem to have a vital role in the whole plot except to snog with Chris Hemsworth. pffft.
- i found it hilarious when one of the henchmen spoke Indonesian. haha. i didn't know what i was getting myself into when i bought tickets for this movie (got Chris Hemsworth whatttt, who cares?)
- i found it even hilarious that the movie plot found its way to Perak. did Chris Hemsworth actually come to Malaysia just to film a 5-minute scene??
- the movie ending sucks. the evil villain could've pulled off so much more.

Vice

- when your usual main star actor is degraded to a secondary character in the movie, you know that the movie won't end up well. 'lending his name to crappy B-movie efforts', one website quoted. that is so true.
- the whole movie concept was interesting, but the movie was sucky. nuff said.

Birdman

- don't trust a movie by its Rotten Tomatoes ratings, i've learned. while all those Mat Sallehs gave it a whopping 92% rating, i was cringing in my seat throughout the whole movie -____-
- ok so the way they filmed the movie was kinda different, the movie appears as a continuous long take for the whole 119 minutes. but i still wasn't amused.
- i realize that i don't fancy movies with so many Academy Award nominations, they tend to be too serious and boring for my brain to take.
- i was like 'oooooookay...' (plus disbelief face, think Emoji emoticon haha) when Michael Keaton started to fly in the air T____T.
- i got the movie tickets free from my boss, else i wouldn't even have bothered to watch it.

Jupiter Ascending

- this movie, i find i can brain. awesome fiction movie =D
- like i said, i really shouldn't rely on Rotten Tomatoes ratings, i think they highly rate boring Academy Award-worthy movies and trash the others (this movie got 22%).
- a movie plot worth watching if you're into all these sci-fi stuff. or if you're into Channing Tatum resembling an elf descendant in the movie hahahaha (check out his wings at the end of the movie: awesome!).
- the actors who portrayed the siblings of the House of Abrasax were kind of lame, if you ask me (sorry!).


oh yeah... just a little footnote here to remind myself the names of the planets in the Solar Sytem translated into Malay (because they resemble nothing to each other) (and also because my daughter's school changed class names from stones to planets):

Utarid = Mercury
Zuhrah = Venus (not Saturn ok, ahem)
Musytari = Jupiter
Zuhal = Saturn

before and after

just a little insight of how my custom wraps came to be. i'm only just a sister, i suck at creativity.
it really is a mind boggling process, this wrap weaving.
there's your share of patient or crazy weavers, and then there's crazy fickle minded customers =P.
the weft color you choose makes a huge difference in the final look of the wrap.
and that's not including your decision on the wrap fibers and the weave you decide to go with.
or whatever special embellishments you decide to go with, i.e. tail accents, middle markers, etc etc.

1. Farideh Four Seasons
- 4.6m, EC warp hemp variegated weft, twill.

on the warp

final product

2. Alison Addicks Birdsong
- 4m, cotton mauve weft, hearts weave.

on the warp

final product

3. Etla Iris
- 3.3m, cotton peach weft, plain weave.

on the warp

final product

4. Farideh Reverie
- 4m, cotton mauve weft, twill weave, pink/magenta diamond weave for tails.

on the warp

final product

updated 18/2/15:
and... out of all 4 only one is still with me.

getting ready for school

my not-so-little Dayana will be going to primary school this year. she had her orientation last Monday, seems like i don't need to worry about her wailing for her Mommy when school starts on the 12th.

although i may need to teach her how to go to the loo without getting all her clothes wet - she's afraid she'll fall into the squatting toilet bowl if she's not careful T___T. it would be nice if the school would provide students with a small map of the school layout. i wasn't sure which toilet belonged to which gender when i was there, hahah.

her bestie is placed in a different school from hers, so i guess she's gonna hafta find a new bestie in her new school later on. her kindy classmate Adam ended up in the same school as her though, so that's one familiar face there. she'll find out which class she'll be put into once the school semester starts.

you should've seen all the forms we parents have to fill up. borang itu, borang ini, haiz. it's been awhile since i've utilized my writing skills, literally speaking.

times like these you wish you'd have given your child a shorter name instead of a lengthy susah-nak-sebut-let-alone-spell name, huh? LOL.

being a first-time mom sending a child to primary school, i'm a certified noob. it's not like there's a 101 book on how to send your kid to Standard One for the first time. they don't simply hand out a checklist to inform you on what you need to prepare for your children's schooling (i don't know about how other schools do it, but i had to ask for the book checklist from the book store on orientation day). come to think of it, i had to stop and wonder if the school had mentioned anything about afternoon sessions, lol.

anyway, there's so many things to settle, such as:

- transit, especially for working mommas. like how does she know which one is her transit? what if she gets on the wrong bus? what if the driver can't recognize her and leaves her behind?

- what school uniform to wear, whether you're gonna hafta buy their PJ uniform outside or if they have special school emblazoned ones (the school PJ t-shirt was unfortunately out of stock T_T), how many pairs do you actually need, where you're gonna alter the clothing if your kid can't even fit into the smallest available size, who's gonna sew on their school badges and name tags if you're a sewing-illiterate like me, etc;

- which stationery would be considered USEFUL for your child in school? i've been hanging out at the back-to-school aisles at shopping malls figuring out what the heck should i buy: do they even need pens? are mechanical pencils allowed? wouldn't sharpening their blunt pencils be a total waste of time? did you know there were so many brands for you to choose from???? *rambang mata*

btw, why do school bags end up looking bigger than the kids themselves? #bringrockstoschool

- do we need to buy all the optional books on the book list?

blur. luckily the storekeeper helped me figure everything out

regarding writing her name 1000 times (okay, i'm exaggerating over here) over and over again on each and every book, i had a little help, thanks to this little labelling machine Significant Other bought in Jusco. type - print - stick. that easy.

true, some people would just tempah rubber stamps with their kids name on it and simply stamp them on, but this machine is versatile in the sense that i can even label their class, school, subject, without having to tempah so many rubber stamps just to cater for separate purposes, hee~ (process to poison my friends to buy this contraption is currently in progress =P). i remember i used to have my own rubber stamp too, many many years ago, that was so old-skool. but then again rubber stamps are useful too, provided your books are not the shiny type cover.

due to the flood situation, the two elder kids aren't due to start school for another week, syok lah diorg...

bangun pagi - gosok gigi - tengok ipad - tengok tv - gaduh riang - buat semak - habiskan stock vitagen Mommy - suka hati.

ish.

rs vs rs

it was hard to choose

between:

the oldest in my stash

storchenweige Ulli, SBP shoulder

and

the prettiest in my stash
(to me, anyway)

psling kiwi shijira, GOLD rings

so

which did you think got

the cut?

birthday at KL bird park

on Saturday my friend invited the kids to her three dot's combined birthday party at KL bird park. luckily Waze got me there in one piece, i actually don't know where the bird park is, hahahah. to me birds are beautiful, but they're boring and they love to poop (ahhh marah la semua burung2 kat bird park tu). i didn't even know you could hold parties here, check out the link to some of the packages that they offer.

i thought it would be an interesting experience for the kids to go to (and they seemed bored out of their minds staying at home all day) so i woke them all up early and off we went. the party was scheduled from 11am-2pm, if you're late you'd miss the quick tour in the bird park.

the map, just in case you don't have Waze to help you =P

bibik followed as well, so i opted to bring the stroller so that Sophia wouldn't wander about like she always does. the event was held in a separate area, away from the official bird park entrance. i'd have to say, getting to the event area wasn't really stroller-friendly, it was stairs, stairs and more stairs all the way. at least the bird park helpers were helpful enough to lug the stroller down the stairs, and up again, haha. next time i'm just gonna stick to babywearing, thank you.

hmmm takde gambar the birthday girls la pulak

with kids involved, it was difficult to keep to the schedule, so the large group of us strolled through the park in our own pace as we made our way to the Amphitheater, where we were given a fantastic display performed by the birds themselves. the show started at 12.30pm. as usual, my mushroom of a kid never seems to smile for the camera T__T.

camwhoring before the Bird show

after the show, we all headed back to the party, where the kids gathered round to sing happy birthday - three times haha - and the parents got to stuff their faces with food. the food was nothing fancy, but it was catered to suit the kids (and whatever they eat, the adults can eat too lol). my kids are ridiculously picky-eaters, so i was kinda glad they were smitten with the sausages and nuggets. oohh and the birthday cake was lovely. there were like three different types of birthday cakes (one for each kid haha): chocolate, mango cheesecake, and victoria buttercake. the mango cheesecake was so ohsem, i ate the whole thing myself =P~~~~.

hantu nugget

awesome kid-friendly food!

oh and there was a quick photo session with the birds. each kid got to pose for a photo with the birds. i'd never thought Dayana would be brave enough to do something like that, especially since the birthday kids themselves were scared of the birds (and i was especially afraid of mascots when i was younger, remember that A&W Root Bear? -___-) but she was all up for it. you should've seen Dayana pose with the birds, complete with one on top of her head (haha!) *clap clap* she told me the birds were heavy, that's why she had to hold her arms up high macam strong woman. she received an awesome party pack, even i wished i had gotten one LOL.

and the best part was, even Dinara wanted to have a go at it *blink blink in disbelief*. i kept asking her 'are you sure? are you sure? cannot cry you know' and she kept nodding and said, 'nak macam kakak'. i didn't know whether she was excited for the birds or for the party pack, mommy pulak yang berdebar2 haha, i kid you not. but she didn't flinch one bit when they told her to hold up her arms for the birds to perch on. i haaad to laugh because she was so busy concentrating that she forgot to smile for the camera, HAHAHAHAHHAHA.

p/s. one of the birds pooped on one of the bird handler, yucks. told you they love to poop =P.

but i had a great time at the party, even the kids were happy too, although Dayana did ask me if she could go jalan2 lagi after that T_____T. thanks for inviting us =)

mister roti canai

came here last weekend with the elder two kids after swimming class. someone mentioned the roti canai here was very nice, worth a try. so after looking up the location on waze, off we went.

Mr. Roti Canai,
2, Jalan Putra Murni 3/2A,
47630 Subang Jaya, Selangor.

everything on the menu looked interesting. check out the different types of roti you could order.

muka sapa tu?

there were selections of nasi lemak and noodles to choose from as well, but let's just concentrate on the roti first, ok? (lol they're not called mr. roti canai for nothing lulz). i think their drinks were so-so. the teh ais was kinda bland. the service was ok, there weren't many people anyway. are they always like that? i'd categorize them at a higher level than your usual mamak, lol.

my kids were a roti fan,so they happily got their dose of roti canai + roti telur. and for something different, i tried the egg roll. Significant Other says it looked like a kebab -____-. when i was googling for the address i came upon someone's blog mentioning that the roti canai float was worth a try (and it also reminded me of roti dholl, the one roti we didn't get to try when were in Alor Setar last time lol) so i tapau-d that for Significant Other. the only roti canai in the menu that came with two soft boiled eggs. i'm not really a fan of soaking wet roti, but he said it was nice.

then he asked me, was that all? T______T what, you wanted me to tapau the whole menu back? haha.

i tried the egg roll.

roti canai outing