Schoolwork, Abby & Baby

Can't sleep. Woke up feeling too hungry I felt nauseous. Sick feeling in the stomach. Went to check my mail and realised from the Babycenter pregnancy updates that our lil' one is ordering home delivery to the uterus. Still hungry. Here's when my weight will balloon soon.

Managed to complete my Oral History assignment, and will submit later. Was supposed to submit my research paper final draft later also, but looking at the horrendous state I was in, even Ben agreed that I should ask for an extension. Which I did. And praise the Lord, my tutor agreed! Thankfully, my social studies tutorial has been cancelled on Friday, which leaves me an available slot to atttend my critical reading & writing class. Ben helped me brainstorm and I've got a clearer picture of my direction now. Thank God for him.

A couple more assignments and I'm done for the term - and ready to study for 3 papers. Meanwhile, I still have to clear the rest.

On to lighter stuff.

Yesterday, Abby wanted to poop. (Yup, poop story... but not entirely!) When I wanted to transfer her to the potty, she signaled 'No More'. Still I wanted to try. We had fun on the potty just chatting about everything. Then suddenly, she said, "Dah!" (Silly me was thinking about my MIL's comment about how Abby can say Dah! in Da-pian - Mandarin for poop), and I asked, "da-pian?" She had that, "no mummy, that's not what i'm referring to" look on her face and clarified by signalling 'Twinkle Twinkle Little Star'! Oh!! 'STAR!' Then she smiled. Then I realised, she wanted me to sing that to her! Then I sang, minus the last syllable, and she didn't fill in the blanks. She's stopped doing so. I've been wondering why - thought she was sick of the game or something. But yesterday, I realised why. Because she wanted to hear the *whole* song! Eureka! So I sang the whole song after I realised what she wanted, and she smiled so broadly. After many times, I tried the fill-in-the-blank game again, and this time she sang! (Usually she'll have a cheeky look on her face and fill the blank with some other word - like 'Ball Ball' or something followed by a smile.) It was fun.

She's a real sweetie. Every night although we know everyone needs to sleep, Ben & I can't help but wait for her to wake up. (And now I realise why she's waking up. She rotates in her sleep, and jams at ninety degrees. That's when she yelps. We need a bigger bed. She's outgrowing her crib.) Even in the morning, she'll wake up, get all snuggly (her choice of who to snuggle with), gives kisses and just have fun in bed. Then one of us will get up to ask Lina to help her get ready for breakfast. Just now, she was quite excited climbing around in bed, so I asked her nicely to stay put and wait for mummy. And she did! She just sat there all the way till I came back... *heart melt*

Oh, some new words (At 14months 2 wks):
- "Go-go!" To go somewhere.
- "Walk-walk!" To walk (usually to get away from being carried or off the bed.)
- "Gou-Gou" (very similar to 'Go-go') referring to dog (Mandarin)
- "Ta!" for truck
- Starting to string words together - go go walk walk. Daddy mamam. Mama mamam. Mamam Neng neng. (I know some people strongly advise against using baby words, but it's just vocabulary - also, not easy to convert the whole family to speaking properly to her. Harmony above child's vocab. We'll deal with the vocab later.)

New actions:
- Can point to pictures of key, flower, shoes, telephone, apple, ball, in her "First Steps Series - Words" picture book. Can pick out lion, bird, bear from her Ikea finger puppets and name them.
- Is standing independently for a longer time now.
- Initiates flying kisses when we say goodbye - Absolute heart melter!
- Walking much more, sometimes will allow us to hold only one hand.

As for our lil' one inside me (now 18wks), I'm feeling more movements (since 16 wks). I'm almost halfway there! Actually I gave birth to Abby at 37wks, so it's possibly the halfway mark! I understand that subsequent births are earlier and faster. Feel hungrier, and ran out of stretchmark cream - not a good combination coz this is the time I'm starting to balloon. Hip is feeling much better (yeah!) and energy seems to be returning. Can't fall asleep (fast enough) at night though. Mind keeps churning. My detailed scan is scheduled on the 31st October with Dr Ann Tan. Have to keep praying though... :) God is good! :)