Sigh

I must say I'm not enjoying work at all. Let's just leave the reason for now as I can't spend time with my baby anymore and I'm always so tired I feel my quality of life is compromised. The fatigue just got worse this week. I have to take a nap from 8-10 in the evening. Actually, that was meant to be a 15 minutes rest but I just fall asleep and nothing can ever wake me up, not even the cries of my baby. I'll just tell Desmond to settle her. I feel like such a terrible mother.

Speaking of my baby, she hasn't recovered from her illness yet. It's close to two weeks since she started sniffing and coughing. Briefly, she did seem to be getting well, until she got worse over the weekend again. We had to take her to a paediatrician who told us babies usually take longer to recover, maybe even up to 2 weeks. That's good news because we can be sure for now there's nothing wrong with Alyssa. Hopefully she will recover with the new medication that is being administered to her. (Illadin loses efficacy after 5 days of continual usage and rhinathiol did nothing for her coughing. Now we are on to Bromhexine, a medication for respiratory tract infection to 'dilute' the mucus produced, and Cetirizine for her running nose.) However, the doctor cautioned us that she may develop bronchitis if this persists for too long (mucus stuck in her airway causing asthma-like symptoms) so we still need to monitor her very closely.

Besides the illness, Alyssa had been a darling as usual. She just turned 4 months old yesterday and we took her to a salon to shave her hair off because her hair was perpetually bad-looking. She was so good at the salon. She just sat patiently for the job to be done. No wailing or crying. She wasn't even slightly shifty, though she must be wondering what we were trying to do to her.

I think she looks cuter now that she is without hair, but she also looks more like a boy.

Time really flies. 4 months have passed even before I realised it. I won't be able to recognise her if I looked at her newborn pictures.

Before I know it, she'll be running round and I'll be old and dying. I need to cherish all the precious moments I have with her.

Time is evil.

My Poor Baby

My poor baby is sick.

For the first time is her not-very-long-yet life, she is sick. She started having a bit of a blocked nose on Thursday and things just got worse when Friday came. Her nose was dripping when I picked her up from infant care after work. She was still manageable on Friday when Desmond and I went out for MAHJONG but after we returned, it was hell for us.

She got so sick that she couldn't sleep and kept waking up and crying with every sneeze and cough. Poor us were kept awake the entire night trying to soothe her but nothing we did seem to work. We would have 15 minutes of peace (ok, Desmond says I'm exaggerating, it was 30 minutes of peace, but bad enough nevertheless) and she would start making a din again.

We were so tired that when morning came and so did my father-in-law into our room, that we gladly passed the baby to him so we could get some shut-eye. In my exhaustion, I even dreamt that my parents-in-law were going to take her to the doctor on our behalf. I woke up asking him if he fed her the medicine, only to realise shortly after that I was dreaming.

So we went to the doctor and we had to wait a long time because there were a lot of people. The good thing about this doctor we went to was that he likes kids and he's careful with them and dispenses alot of additional advice. Anyway, while we were waiting for our turn, I had to constantly wipe the dripping mucus and drool off her face. It was so gross and disgusting that I decided tissue will a better job than hankerchief. We were almost throwing tissue into the bin every other minute.

The problem with a sick baby is that there isn't alot of medicine for them. The doctor gave us a nasal decongestant for infant, something for her phlegm, 2 days of MC and sent us home. The nasal decongestant works wonder. Her nose stopped running almost instantly but the other medicine did nothing for her coughing.

Although my poor baby isn't running a temperature now, she is still miserable with the cold and cough. She hasn't slept well for 3 nights already (when she doesn't sleep well, it means I don't sleep well) and keeps crying all the time e.g. she screamed for almost ah hour just this evening. I wonder if I should wait for her to recover before sending her to the infant care.

I hope my poor child gets well soon. :(

Happy Valentine's Day!

This is the second Valentine's Day with Desmond. I had to ask him what we are going to do for Valentine's Day before he started thinking about it. Poor me, that's what one gets when her husband is an unromantic person (the strange thing is, he thinks everything is romantic).

After several phone calls, we decided on this Italian restaurant called Garibaldi for our Valentine's Day dinner. I was ready excited about going to this restaurant because it is apparently 'an award winning' restaurant. It's been a long time since I went fine dining and I almost couldn't wait to discover another great restaurant.

See the list of awards below.

It was a nice little place. The decor was simple yet posh. Walls are dark and it was dimly lit. Nice ambience but we wondered how the food would be.

The menu was like this:
Most of the time, we speculated on how big the food portion will be and whether we would be full from it. We certainly hope we would be full after a 5-course dinner and not have to hunt for supper later on.

The first dish came.
Looks really nice doesn't it. I went straight to take the fried onions off the prawns and Desmond had to remind me to take photos of the food. *lol* The dish was nice. The juiciness of the seafood was preserved by its cold temperature. Yummy. I love cold seafood and it's perfect with the sparkling white wine that came with the meal.

I didn't care so much for the second dish. It was asparagus. It tasted positively vegetable and I gave it all to Desmond after just a small mouth of it.

The third dish is Desmond's favourite because he likes dumplings and this ravioli reminds him of just it. I love the potato sauce.

This is my main course.

And this is Desmond's main course.

Mine was veal (veal = young calf meat) and his was salmon. He thought mine was really nice, the meat was tender and I thought his was better - the mid-rare salmon was cooked just right.

Dessert was really nice. It was some homemade chocolate cream. It was too sweet for Desmond and he gave his dessert to me. Yummy. I wonder how many calories that was.

Overall, the food is good. However, what was the best was the company. I had my cutest daughter with me, who was good during most of the dinner even though she was sick. She drew some attention from the rest of the diners because she was the only baby there and of course, she was so sweet and adorable. Needless to say, it was wonderful because I have my husband with me.

It was a simple but really happy valentine's day. =)

Back At Work

I'm back at work!!!

This is the first week at work after my four months of maternity leave (to be precise, it was ONLY 16 weeks). My COO (Chief Operating Officer) had to have a prep talk lasting for 2 hours with us on the first day I was back. It was about the current economic climate. "I will not cut anybody now, but it doesn't mean I can promise the same 6 months later." I wonder if he's hinting something to me.

I haven't had much to do at work ever since the project I was employed for was terminated. To be more precise, it never started. Then, my boss was dead certain that it would start because "development was the same for the other countries" but never did he expect that the client will try to cut us out of the deal and went to the bank direct for the program we initiated. From then on, the coffin was nailed and no one mentioned about that project ever again. Now, all we have to do is business development.

There are some ideas which they have explored in my absence. I hope they will get down to actually implementing the ideas. In the meantime, everyone is required to think of an idea so the company can explore whatever is feasible and hopefully, ride through this tough economic climate. I need to start racking my rusty brain for some ideas. Bummer.

What is most interesting at work now is however, not work. It is pumping milk. Every 2.5 hours, I would hide in the server room and start pumping milk for half an hour. Thank God most people there are family men/women and I'm sure they'll understand why I'm doing this (I'm really not skiving!!! *lol*).

Damn, I've got work tomorrow.

Crazy CNY

I know CNY (Chinese New Year) is long over but I have to have an entry on it so I can remember how crazy it was.

It must be the busiest CNY I've had for a long time. Preparations for CNY started a couple of days before where we were busy tidying up our room - changing bedsheet, wiping windows and basically anything that can be wiped, mopping of the floor and washing of our car. Thank God I wasn't alone in cleaning the room. I did what I did best every year - wipe the windows. Desmond did most of the rest. Luckily I have a good husband who would help with the chores.

However, I'm sad to say that not all of Desmond's help is much appreciated. I asked him to pull the ipod adapter out of the cigarette lighter socket while we were washing the car so I could try vacuuming the car and guess what, he actually damaged the adapter in the process. I have no idea how he could dismantle the adaptor while trying to get it out of the socket. I was nearly livid. That adapter was a gift I received for my little car (even before I got the car) from my ex-lab colleagues. It is sad that it's ultimate fate was for it to be broken and thrown into the bin.

That wasn't the end of the story. I decided to halt the washing of the car and we drove home. On the way back, I sensed something strange about the car - the time display was gone!!! Who could wash a car till the time display was erased along with it? Desmond thought it could be due to him closing the bonnet too hard, leading to the system to short-circuit. Days later, we found that it wasn't just the time-display. The radio ceased working too. Luckily these were not attributed to Desmond. It was purely because the battery of the car had gone too low for the time-display and radio to function. Otherwise, he might have been dead.

CNY was a lot of house visits for us. His family already has the itinerary worked out for the new year. This is something new for me. Firstly, my family never really bothered to visit anyone during CNY, and secondly, I hardly was at home during CNY (there was even one year I went to India for CNY, of all places). We had to visit all the elders of Desmond and also all the god-parents of his parents (beats me why we actually have to do this. I think it is because my parents-in-law want to show off their grandchild to everyone). I enjoy some of these visiting, but some of it is just a waste of my time. This year we went visiting my relatives with ah ma too. She said she would 'show us the ropes' so we know which relatives of mine to visit for CNY every year. Thank goodness there was a long weekend for CNY these year and we could spread the visitings over a period of time.

CNY is a season of MAHJONG. MAHJONG QUEEN aka me, had quite a killing. It was a wonder I could have won any money facing opponents such as Desmond and my mother-in-law. I'm quite sure my MAHJONG skills have improved tremendously. The only time Desmond and I didn't win at MAHJONG was when we went to Andrew's place and played with them. I think the place is unlucky for us where MAHJONG is concerned. We should try to avoid that place whenever necessary. *LOL* However overall, it was a little too much MAHJONG, even for MAHJONG QUEEN. We would play MAHJONG for hours and sometimes, till late at night such as 2 to 3am. There was even a point where I thought I was getting a headache looking at the MAHJONG tiles.

I was quite glad CNY was over. I certainly hope we will have less activity next year. =S

:(

OMG!!! MY HOLIDAYS IS COMING TO AN END!!! I'M RETURNING TO WORK IN 9 HOURS' TIME!!! SOMEONE HELP ME!!! HELP!!!