Tiring week

This week has been especially draining for me, it's all work related. There's a huge event coming up in the end of Sept & I'm heavily involved in it. It'll be difficult for me to have a good rest till Oct, I'm so looking forward to 29 Sep, when all this madness ends.

Anyway, we'd visited the gynae on Monday, it was my 28th week of pregnancy. And nanami is growing real fast, she's now 1.3kg! According to Baby Centre, she's only supposed to be a little over 1kg at this stage. Well, as long as she's growing well & healthy (heartbeat is normal & my gynae said her size is just a little big), I guess this is alright. And I'd only gained 2.1kg since my last visit so everything's under control.

I loved the ultrascan portion of my visit the best, that's when we get to see nanami 'up-close-and-personal'. She was moving her little hand over her face when the ultrascan was done.

We can't see her whole body now as she grows bigger so the scan sheets that we get now only show her face & body. I don't know if it's easy for you to read the scan but it's her side profile, with her head on the right and her right hand over her mouth. Her body and left hand are in shot as well.

Everyone's been asking me if I'm excited about nanami's arrival. I'm not sure if I'm excited yet but Nic & myself have been making preparaions for her. Last Fri, we bought her pram. And today, we just bought a new digital camera, a Casio Exilim Z100. It's been 4 years since we bought our 1st digital camera, a Nikon coolpix, which is 5.1 megapixel. So I thought it's time to upgrade to a 10 megapixel digital camera with wide angle lens and a slimmer body, so we can take shots of nanami easily.

And, of course, I couldn't resist buying some clothes for nanami from the web as there were some good sales taking place ;p I've received 1 of my orders, I'm eagerly waiting for my order from the US now, the package should arrive by the middle of next week. I've to control myself from buying too much now as babies grow real fast and it'll be a waste if she can't wear all the clothes that I've bought for her.

It's time for me to rest now, need to recuperate myself for the exhausting month ahead. Hopefully, I can keep up my weekly updates in the month of Sep.

An apple a day keeps the doctor away?

The subject heading might be a little misleading but there are 2 parts to this. Yes, I do take an apple everyday, every morning in fact, it's been my routine for the past 4 years. I'd read somewhere that if u take an apple half an hr before ur meal, it'll help with digestion. Of cos, I'll take the red apples as I'm not a fan of sour stuff. I take it in the morning, before I take my breakfast and it has been doing well for me. BUT does it really keep the doc away? It's hard to say cos I'm not prone to falling ill easily but hey, it's still a cheap way to keep ur body healthy isn't it?

Ok, back to my true intention of this post. I wanted to talk about the launch of iphone here in Singapore. I work for the 1st telco company which brought in the revoluntionary 3G iphone to Singapore. Although I'm not working in the Consumer dept, which is the division that's bringing in the iphone, it's still quite an experience for me to see the developments of this launch.

When iphone was first launched by Apple last year and only AT&T (in USA) had the exclusive rights to sell it in the world, I've had friends, vendors & customers asking me if my company is planning to bring it in since we're the incumbment in Singapore. And when it was announced that we'll be the 1st to bring in iphone to Singapore mid this year, my friends, vendors and customers started asking me if I knew about the exact launch date and price plans.

Sad to say, I'm not in the privileged group so I don't have access to such info and it's also one of the best kept secrets in the company! No one knew about the exact date of the launch but we'd seen preparations intensify 2 weeks before the 22 Aug launch date. And on this launch week, there was even more mayhem, with preparations going on overdrive mode.

On the day of the launch (well, it was launched at 12.01am on 22 Aug), we saw queue barricades being set up and lots of hired security guards on standby, to ensure that the launch is done in an orderly manner. I'd left the office late on launch date and had wanted to soak in the excitment (although I'm not an iphone fan) but due to my current pregnant stage, it's quite challenging for me.

When I left the office, I didn't see a crowd at the launch area and was worried that ours was going to be a lackluster launch but it turned out that the crowd was controlled at another part of the building and we had a good size turn out for the iphone launch. So, phew, it went well. And iphone fans who've pre-ordered their phones have been turning up in throngs to be the first few to get their hands on the much talked about gadget.

How long will this craze continue? Judging from the response in other countries, it seems that the demand is still high, depsite complains on the lack of standard 3G functions and software glitches. So.... to overcome these negative feedback, should Apple consider a new ad? An (Apple) iphone a day keeps the pessimists away?

Sneaky sales

I've been on the look out for some baby stuff recently, from prams & car seats to clothes and other daily necessities. Trying to do my homework early so that I can be prepared nanami is close to her arrival date. So 1 of the forums that I've been surfing recently is Singapore Motherhood Forum, which has mothers from Singapore logging in to talk about anything under the sun about babies and more.

And yesterday, Nic's colleague, who also surfs the forum, sent him a couple of interesting links, 1 of them being a mummy who's giving away baby girls' clothes, from 0-3mths. So, naturally, I'm curious why someone would be willing to put up such a thread in the forum, since it's quite unusual for someone to give out free stuff to strangers.

Then I decided to send an email to this person to indicate my interest, I mean, who wouldn't want free stuff right? And since it's for the baby and they grow so fast, I don't mind accepting hand-me-downs, they're good for homewear in Singapore's hot & humid climate. My email was sent about 2hrs after this person posted this thread.

I got a reply 1 day later, ie today. And this person said that the clothes have been given away but she's got new and second hand clothes to sell and gave me a list of items that she's selling! It got me pissed off, this person is obviously not keen on selling but is using underhanded means to generate leads and then sell her stuff! So irritating! Anyway, I got so angry, I wrote back and said "In that case, then I don't need anything since my friends are passing me their stuff". Geez, the nerve!

Buying for baby

Yesterday, Nic and me made a big purchase for nanami. We bought her baby cot at the current Baby Fair that's being at at B2 of Takashimaya. I'd never really thought that we'd need to buy this so early, it's like bringing me to reality check that nanami is going to join our lives in 3 months! Wow, I'm 2/3 into my pregnancy!

We'd been looking at bulk items such as baby cot, strollers & car seats for a while, but had been waiting for the right moment and a good sale to make this purchase. Buying stuff for baby sure isn't cheap. Not that we'd spent a lot on the cot, it's a good offer that comes with a mattress, a 5-pc bedding set and a mobile toy. We've set the delivery of the cot for 25 Oct. The sales person had told us that the earliest delivery date is in mid-Oct and we went "No worries, that's too early for us!" hahaha

Picking a good stroller is a lesson in itself. Being 1st time parents, we figured it'll be good to make an investment in a stroller (of cos, something mid-range) since nanami is our first, we may have #2 later. And it should be 1 that is sturdy yet light, easy to manage with 1 hand, easy to push around, compact (if possible) & most importantly, comfortable for nanami. We don't want her suffering while on the stroller, and that be a waste of our investment if she doesn't enjoy sitting on the stroller. It's a good thing that the sales staff for the strollers were so friendly, we'd learnt quite a bit about strollers from that 2 and & half hrs that we'd spent at the fair.

And we'd to learn about baby car seats as well, they were all foreign to us. We'd to find 1 that's easy to use, safe, and comfortable for nanami. We'd found one that looks quite good but being the typical 'research-centric' parents that we are, we'd decided to do some homework before deciding on what we want. And it's still early for us so we can check out other shops & compare prices first.

Being the typical mummy-who's-happy-that-she's-expecting-a-girl, I couldn't resist buying some clothes for nanami. Well, just some cheap stuff, like 3 for $9.90, it's like sleepwear for newborns, so that nanami will have some decent sleepwear since this mummy doesn't intend to spend too much on such stuff as babies grow real fast, in fact, too fast!

We'll be checking out prices of strollers & car seats later and decide if we need to buy them now or if we can wait. Will be tiring for the legs but it's still fun shopping :)