French Alphabet Blocks

This weekend was the first time I have purchased anything from Facebook Marketplace. Before, I was vaguely aware it existed, but used only Craigslist when I was purchasing 2nd hand furniture for the apartment I shared with Marina in 2015, and then 2nd hand wedding decor in 2017. Now one of my habits is to just go on Facebook Marketplace and look at the random baby things for sale near me.

Last Saturday however, I happened to go on and see that someone nearby had listed these blocks for $15. I had seen them online before (retails around $45), they come in a variety of languages, and thought they looked cool, but wasn't sure if they were worth the money. At $15 however, and in French (side note: Jon reads to Elizabeth in French, somehow his French is better than his Tagalog or Mandarin, lol), they were a steal.

Today I finally got round to cleaning then with a mixture of vinegar and water, and then I laid them all out on newspaper to dry and counted 32 blocks, which I thought was a little unusual. Then I went online to check the item on the official website and it says it comes in sets of 28. So I thought maybe more blocks were included by accident and flipped them all onto the animal side - but no, they were all in French too.

I am confused. What a weird mystery.

Baby Board Books List

E has a ton of books. Even before she was born, Jon and I already had some children's books in our possession, typically purchased by Jon because he liked the illustrations. I was also no stranger to the children's books, having started venturing into that section ever since K, my niece was born and I started babysitting R in late 2017/early 2018. Anyway, with this in mind, and how much I personally value books and reading, it should come as no surprise that E has quite a lot of books. She has maybe 50 board books, if not more. When I started writing this, she was doing her usual practice of taking some of her board books out of her wooden crate, flipping through them, and throwing a bunch around.

E just turned 11 months old a few days ago, and with this in mind, I want to create a list of her books that I like the most. Factors like quirkiness, and ease of reading helped me compile this list.

1. Indestructibles series of books

Books from these series are the ones I give to any one about to become a parent. I came across them in the Barnes and Noble at Union Square, and found the concept very interesting. These books are not very heavy on content, but the pages cannot be torn, either by a saliva soaking or use of force. They also don't fly very well when they are thrown, because they're very light lol. My sister in law told me they're good for distracting my niece in situations where they might get dirty, like during meal times, because they can also be easily wiped.

2. Nina Laden - Peek A Who?

Very short, easy to read, and contains a cute mirror in the last page for the baby to look at themselves. The little cut outs in the middle also make it easy for the child to flip the pages.

3. Curious George - I Love You

This book also contains mirrored pages, which are great. I bought this as a 'Valentine's Day' present for E after seeing it at the Barnes and Noble in Ladue, and it has genuinely become one of my favourite books because it's just so sweet. It has lines like, "I love you when you're cranky" and "I love you when you're messy", plus the illustrations are very cute.

4. Eric Carle - Colors (Bilingual)

I don't know how to even quantify how ironic it is that even though my second language is Mandarin, I feel more comfortable reading Spanish books to E (maybe it shows how much Chinese baby board books suck?). Anyway I like this book because the sentences are short and simple, the illustrations cute, and there's a little panel for the words in both languages that you can move, e.g. red/rojo.

5. Eric Carle - Brown Bear Brown Bear, What Do You See?

A beloved classic, I actually put off buying this book for a long time because I figured I could get it on sale or something since it was so ubiquitous. Eventually I bought it 2nd hand from Half Price Books on Delmar. It is a very silly book, which starts out normal seeming, and quickly devolves into the absurd - blue horses and purple cats anyone? Before becoming strangely meta and breaking the 4th wall. Also very easy and a quick read.

6. Sandra Boynton - Moo, Baa, La La La!

As a rule of thumb, all Sandra Boynton books are great. I would read Dinosaur Dance to E when I was still pregnant (apparently babies can hear and recognise the books they heard while in the womb? I don't know. I tried), but out of all of them, Moo, Baa, La La La! is definitely my favourite. It is short and silly, and became one of the books I ended up memorising early on really fast (Cows go Moo, Sheep go Baa, Three singing pigs go La La La!...)

7. Sandra Boynton - Happy Hippo, Angry Duck

This is another great book by Sandra Boynton. It teaches kids about moods, relating them to animals. At the end, it helps reiterate that bad moods are only temporary, and that the child is loved no matter what. A great book for helping teach emotional intelligence, especially when the child becomes older and starts throwing tantrums.

8. Emily Gravett - Orange Pear Apple Bear

One afternoon when I was still working at with my internship, I had to pass a document to another staff member at Grand Central Station in NYC outside of my working days. She was running late, so Jon and I ducked into a store inside to kill time, which turned out to sell kid's toys and books. That was when I first came across this book, and was so taken by it that I went home and saved it to an Amazon list. It was early 2016, and there were no young children anywhere near me, but that just shows how great this book is. Beautifully illustrated, very simple to read, and incredibly silly, this book features the same 4 words, orange, apple, pear, bear (well, and 1 'there!') in a variety of combinations and accompanying pictures like, "orange bear".

9. Lucy Freegard - Elephant

A purchase from an atas baby store in Ladue one Saturday morning, when Jon and I were waiting for a table at the Original Pancake House (their Dutch Baby Pancakes are to die for), this might possible be the most expensive board book that E owns at roughly $15. Most baby board books tend to hover under the $10 mark. Still, I had really liked the parts that I had seen when I flipped through the book at the store, and I fell more in love with it when I came home. It basically tells the story of a parent elephant and a baby elephant in rhyme and their time together. The last page however, tugs at my heart strings, "And when I am older and wrinkly and wise/I will remember just how quickly time flies. Each day striving to learn something new/making more memories to share with you." A great reminder how I should treasure my time with E, despite all the times she drives me crazy.

10. Jan Brett - The Mitten

Another old school favourite, this one is a little bit of a longer read (I'm lazy and impatient, OK?), but the silly story and illustrations make it all worth it. It tells the story of a lost mitten, and of how all the animals try to squeeze into it because it is comfy. It is an absurd tale, and the illustrations on the margins (marginalia anyone?) on each page are full of little jokes too, like on the large page when you see the grandmother puzzling over how stretched out the now-found mitten has become.

Honourable Mentions
11. Dr Seuss - Hop On Pop

No kid's library is complete without a Dr. Seuss book or two. E has quite a few of them, like Fox in Socks, but I prefer Hop on Pop more. Sometimes I feel lazy though, and don't want to spend the effort to read everything out. Come to think of it, I've not read this book to E in a few months precisely because of that reason, whoops. 

12. Martha Day Zschock - Hello St. Louis!

Stumbled upon this in Left Bank Books in Central West End one day, and could not resist purchasing it on the spot. Published just this year, this book details all the sights in St Louis like the Magic House and Lafayette Square in a cute and simply rhyming way. I definitely prefer this book to the only other St Louis-esque book we have, What's That Arch?

Circus Monkeys

Today for the first time, I thought of the phrase, "Not my circus, not my monkeys" in reference to a situation. I think it is a very good and apt saying, and I am pleased with it.

County Roads

The 2020 Covid-19 stay at home order/lockdown in St Louis city and county began on 23 March. Now, they're tentatively setting the reopening date for 18 May. I don't really know what to say about my feelings and thoughts at this point, because a significant amount of time has passed and I've gone through the whole gamut of emotions and thoughts at this point, with the main one lately being a sense of restlessness and boredom.

Anyway since this whole thing has begun, Jon and I began taking long meandering drives around the area, just to get out of the house. So far we have randomly driven to Eureka, Imperial, Arnold, Chesterfield and Ballwin. We have also driven the length of some major East-West roads in the area like Big Bend Road (which really does start with a big bend in Ballwin), Ladue Road, and Clayton Road.

Amidst all of this, E has also learned how to cruise (walk while holding onto things) really well, and has sprouted her top two middle teeth. It also looks like she has 2 more top teeth imminent too.

I don't really know how to feel about St Louis reopening again, because I don't really know what it will entail, and how our day to day lives will change, besides Jon being back at the hospital 24/7. 

Daylight Savings

Yesterday daylight savings started again and we 'lost' an hour of time. So if it's 11:12am now, it means that on Saturday 48 hours ago, it was actually 10:12am. Having lived in the West for a good number of years now, the whole daylight savings thing is not new to me at all, but for some reason this year it feels exceptionally disorienting. 

On Sunday, yesterday, the first day of daylight savings, Jon and I went out to run a bunch of errands and have lunch. Even though I knew there was daylight savings, it wasn't something I had thoroughly absorbed into my consciousness, and I was confused as to why I wasn't even feeling the least bit peckish at 11:45am, even though I had had a very light breakfast of cereal with milk. The same thing followed with dinner, which we had at 7pm, close to 8pm. 

Today however, a Monday, Jon is back to work and I am home with the baby as normal, and I feel even more befuddled. Of course baby has zero idea what daylight savings or even what 'time' is, but I feel thoroughly confused even though our normal sort of loose schedule of feed, play, feed, nap should remain the same. It doesn't help that the weather today is a weird dreary sort of cloudy grey, so it feels like I don't even have the outside sun as a guide to figure out if it's 8am or 1pm. In short, my internal clock feels completely confounded, and I'm sure this in in huge part of spending my day with creature(s) - can't forget Saffron too - that have no idea what daylight savings is but run their own internal clocks anyway. 

This whole daylight savings thing is really, really daft.

Another Baby Food Anecdote

Seems like one of the major topics I put effort into writing about nowadays is baby food. I have no idea why, but go along with the whim anyway.

Today I made blueberry, banana, and tofu puree. And while it tastes OK, I must state that it unequivocally looks like puke, more so than any other baby food that I have made before. And that I am 100% disgusted and feel slightly nauseous looking at it. I think this will be the last time I make this particular food combination for baby.

Baby Fish Porridge

A traditional baby food dish in Singapore is fish rice porridge. My Dad told me an anecdote about the cry room in the sanctuary of the church they attend in Singapore - that around a certain time all the babies/kids start getting hungry at the same time and the whole room turns into a disgusting and nauseating miasma of ang gor li fish and porridge. My Dad and Mum pointed out that they made that same dish for me to eat all the time, and like all other babies, I loved it too.

Anyway since I have become a Mum, my parents ask me every so often what I am making for baby to eat. And they keep suggesting the fish porridge idea. One qualm I've had about it was that I wasn't sure what kind of fish was suitable, and then in what proportions. Good luck trying to ask a fishmonger for ang go li here. But finally Jon got onto the bandwagon too, and wanted to make fish porridge for baby as well, as he's currently on a she's not getting enough protein sort of anxiety binge.

So finally today, I have attempted to make fish porridge. I put in half a cup of jasmine rice to boil, and about half of a fillet of swai fish (what is swai even called in Singapore?). After boiling for a while, I realised the rice had swelled up into a ridiculously large amount, to the extent that the amount of fish seemed too little. So, like any caring Mum, I ended up taking out spoonfuls of just plain rice porridge, so the proportion of liao to porridge would be higher. Then I mixed in some quasi-pureed peas that I had prepared yesterday, so that there would at least be something familiar tasting/fibre in the dish. I then ate the plain rice porridge, with a little bit of soy sauce, so it wouldn't go to waste.

Hopefully baby will like this dish, when I feed it to her later.

Classic Rock

When I drive, the only radio station I listen to is 103.3, the Classic Rock station. Or as Jon calls it, the Dad Rock station, with "Dad" referring not to him, but to my Dad. Specializing in 60's, 70's and 80's music, it plays exactly the kind of music I listen to at home anyway, minus a few bands like Stars, Metric, Muse, Linkin Park (my guilty pleasure) and The Arcade Fire. Jon laments my close-mindedness about music all the time, but usually goes along with it.

Anyway one thing I noticed about 103.3 is that they like to play music in spurts and clusters. For example in December, they kept playing ZZ Top's Sharp Dressed Man and Pink Floyd's Another Brick in the Wall. For a while it was The Car's Just What I Needed. Now however it seems to be the Steve Miller Band's The Joker - and I really really loathe this song. Another favourite for now also seems to be Rick Springfield's Jessie's Girl, which I don't like but at least can tolerate. The sheer number of times some of these songs were played were such that close to every single time I drove (maybe for a total of 1h a day?) I would hear one of them, and they became running jokes between me and Jon. Except The Joker of course, because every time it comes on I just rage inside.

The reason why I'm writing about 103.3 however, is that one day they started playing Green Day's the Boulevard of Broken Dreams, and it took me by surprise because of all things, Boulevard of Broken Dreams could hardly be considered Classic Rock, one reason being that it came out in the mid 2000s and I remember hearing it everywhere when I was in Secondary School. That, by some people's regard, Boulevard of Broken Dreams can be considered Classic Rock, makes me suddenly feel very very old. Says the almost 30 year old with a 7 and a half month old baby.

And that is all I have to say.

Deer Creek Shopping Center

Months ago before I had even arrived in St Louis with baby, my in-laws were first in town with Jon to help him set up the apartment. They visited one of the nearest Dollar Tree stores in our area at the Deer Creek Shopping Center, and my mother-in-law, upon seeing the other stores they had, wryly observed that it would be one of my most favourite spots... and she wasn't wrong haha.

Today was the first time I decided to take the car and baby out without a clear goal. Since my Mum has left, I have only been taking the car on Fridays, when baby has her swimming class. And then I try to bundle all the grocery shopping for the week on the same day, so there's no need to take the car on any other days. This has meant we have become huge homebodies, with the net effect of driving each of us slowly nuts because baby is very social and likes other people, while I start feeling cabin fever-ish because I also like novelty.

The main difficulty now that my Mum has left is that I need to bring baby along with me in the mornings and the evenings when I drive to send/pick up Jon, which on the surface sounded easy when I thought about it months ago. Reality has shown that it is more difficult however as because Jon goes to work relatively early, this means needing to wake baby up, which disrupts her sleep cycle and makes her very tired and cranky, feed and change her. Then when we get home, I am usually tired too from waking up a little earlier than usual, and I still need to contend with a cranky baby and make sure I time her naps. Baby waking me up in the middle of the night, and Saffron meowing up a storm at 4 am do nothing to improve the situation too.

So anyway, that today I finally decided to take the car on a day that I didn't have to, felt like an achievement. Baby and I finally left the house around 11:30 am, and our first stop was Aldi as we had run out of apples at home. Then we drove to Deer Creek Shopping Center, where I went to, in order: 1) McAlister's Deli for lunch 2) Ross Dress for Less, where I bought a whole bunch of baby stuff including reduced price Tommee Tippee sippy cups 3) Dollar Tree, where I also met a random middle aged lady who was telling me a little about how St Louis fell into decline as a city [highways, public transport, public school system, split into city/counties] 4) Marshalls, where I bought a reduced priced Stonewall Kitchen Lime Cilantro Aioli, and finally 5) Buy Buy Baby, where I had to return to the counter a second time because I finally found my 20% off one item coupon, and got back $2.60 in cash.

Now we are finally home, and baby is napping away after some protest. Going to have to wake her up soon, so we can go pick up Jon. Quite a nice and full day, coupled with good weather. I feel happy and accomplished.

Lessons from Beets as Baby Food

The day right after Jon, baby, and I came back from New York City, we went to Soulard Farmer's Market. It was the second time we were there - the first time we had gone was when my Mum was still around - and we wanted to stock up on fresh and cheap produce (emphasis mostly on the cheap). Beets were selling for about 99 cents a pound, and I recalled seeing some pre-made baby food in stores containing beets, so I decided to buy one to try it out.

I learnt several things from making beets as baby food, and some of those things are reasons why I will not be trying it again any time soon. 

1. Beet juice makes everything red.

Beet juice stains everything red. The first time I really noticed it was when I was peeling and cutting it for steaming. I thought it was amusing and it came off easily when I washed my hands. What I didn't count on however, was that because the beet juice also stayed on baby's face and clothes longer than the time an adult takes to prepare beetroot. That meant that baby's face was stained in beet splotches, and her clothes had to be rinse and soaked multiple times in order to get the beet juice out, and there were still lingering stains. Oy.

Also, baby still spits up a lot. Nothing is more alarming than seeing red spit up. For a nanosecond I thought she had some internal bleed, but no. It was just beet juice dyed spit up. Additionally, did I also mention that her poo was a disconcerting dark blackish colour? Almost like she had internal intestinal bleeding. Again, beet juice. But what was even more fun was that this poo, also dyed her backside. Because again, beet juice. So my baby had red stained splotches all over her arse for a short while. Charming.

2. Beets are a laxative.  

This meant that baby pooed. A lot. While I suppose this might be a good thing, I did not like having to clean it up. It also meant that I decided to forgo using the reusable diapers entirely last week in favour of disposables, because I really didn't want to be washing off poo every time I changed baby's diaper. 

3. Steaming beets makes the whole house smell like borscht.

I think this is mainly a good thing, except for the fact that there is actually no borscht. And I like borscht. So being able to smell borscht while not being able to eat it is incredibly disappointing. I also do not know where to find good borscht in St. Louis, as there definitely is no Veselka here.

And so here ends the list of things I have learnt while making and feeding my baby beets.

Anxiety and Motherhood

I feel that anyone who has existing anxiety issues and finds themselves about to become a parent should be sent for counselling. Like: If you think you had worries and anxiety before? THINK AGAIN. Welcome to a whole new world of worries and anxieties, some of which are rational, but are mostly irrational, and stem from your existing (and pre-baby) low self esteem.

BAH. This is all I have to say for now. 

Chinese Style Cooking

Things I've learned from living with my Mum for a month, without anyone else in my family (e.g. Dad, Merlina, etc.):
- She is actually a really good cook
- She is good at selecting fresh fish
- She is very adventurous when it comes to cooking
- The 4 essential fresh ingredients for Chinese style cooking: spring onions, garlic, parsley [cilantro], and ginger

I will miss her a lot when she leaves on Sat ):

Missouri Fall

It has been a week since my Dad has left for Singapore. Since then, I have driven for the first time in my own, which has been incredibly stressful. I have also taken over planning and cooking all our meals, which is a lot more added work, in addition to taking care of the baby. I am very glad however, that my Mum chose to stay behind for another month to help Jon and me with the baby. I am sure we would have managed without her, but it would have been infinitely more stressful than it already is. I am very thankful.

This weekend, the weather was good, so Jon, my Mum, Baby, and I went to the Soulard Farmer's Market, Cherokee Antique Row, Forest Park, church, and finally the Missouri Botanical Gardens. It was a nice Fall weekend, and there were plenty of pretty red and yellow leaves all around, so we tried to make the most of the good weather. As a result, we are all tired out from the weekend. So today, my Mum and I elected to stay in to get some chores done. So far I have:
1) Made Applesauce, which baby hated
2) Cleaned the bathroom

Remaining chores:
1) Make Pumpkin Soup, from the pumpkin we got from Eckert's Farm last week
2) Make dinner of scallops, asparagus, and potatoes
3) Laundry
4) Sort through old, ill-fitting clothes

Real Life Math Questions

Question 1:
If a pack of Pampers Swaddlers Super Pack Size 2 Diapers costs $24.99 and contains 84 diapers, and a pack of Pampers Swaddlers Enormous Size 2 Diapers costs $39.99 and contains 148 diapers, what is the price difference per diaper?

Answer 1:
2 cents

Question 2:
If Target is offering a $10 gift card for buying any 2 packs of diapers, what would the price difference be then?

Answer 2:
0.2 cents

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Today my parents and I brought baby to the pediatrician, for her 4 month check up and vaccines. It was her first doctor's visit, since moving back to the United States. She was generally very happy, but when it came to the doctor's turn to examine her, she was not having it. Between either the unfamiliarity of the doctor (or maybe it was his beard?), and the fact that she was hungry and I was trying to push off feeding her until after she got her vaccines, she was incredibly upset. I was trying my best to ignore her screaming and listen to my conversation with her doctor when it suddenly got quiet and I turned around, and my Dad was holding her in his arms and feeding her, lol.

Anyway when the needle(s) went in - just like her 2 month round of vaccines - her mouth opened up and her face contorted in agony/rage/pain, but no sound came out for a few seconds. Then she gave several sharp yells and stopped, sucking on her fingers. Minimal fussing on her part, for something that I had been dreading for a while.

My baby is very brave, and she sure handles vaccines a lot better than I do as an adult. 

Observations at 30 Weeks and 3 Days

Today I am 30 Weeks and 3 Days pregnant. I am feeling quite uncomfortable, and am dreading the thought that things can only get more rather than less uncomfortable from here on in. That thought makes me feel quite put out, but I know there is little I can do except to wait things out. So far pregnancy has been everything that I thought it would be, but also a lot worse and filled with more unknowns that I could have imagined. Still, a tiny part of me thinks It'll be worth it.

Anyway so far here are the worst 3 symptoms of pregnancy that I've experienced:
1) Gastric issues: 'morning' sickness that lasted somewhat into the early weeks of my second trimester; elevated GERD and IBS issues that ensure my stomach is usually almost always in some sort of discomfort, which then leads to...

2) Insomnia and sleeping issues: since getting pregnant I've alternatively been so exhausted I feel like I can't function, or been in a constant state of worry that I can't sleep because of either hormones or stomach discomfort. I have gone several nights without being able to sleep at all because of either reason, and now the thought of whether I'll be able to sleep gives me anxiety. Since coming back to Singapore, I've experienced 4 nights worth of sleeplessness where I can't sleep a wink until 7am+ the next day.

3) Symphysis Pubic Dysfunction + whatever other strange new pain that has just cropped up: around Week 18 I started to slowly notice a pain cropping up in my pelvic area whenever I walked. After one particularly straining day when I walked through Central Park, the pain started to get very severe. For a while after getting after getting back to Singapore the pain abated, but is now definitely here to stay, as it has been for the last almost 3+ weeks. Basically it's a deep, wrenching pain that I feel in my pelvic area, and it particularly affects my right side. I would rate it a good 7.5/10 on the pain scale, and it tends to be the worst right when I get up from the bed after lying down. I read someone online describing it as feeling like being torn apart - and while that seemed a little dramatic to me, when I experience it, that description does feel very apt. Joining this pelvic pain, for the last 2 days, is a mysterious sharp pain I feel on the left side near my tailbone. I don't know if it's sciatic pain, or something else altogether, but it's very distinctively different from SPD. As a result now, from all the pain, I waddle around slowly and hope I don't make things any more worse.

Basically, pregnancy has been one of most physically and emotionally trying periods of my life. I really cannot understand how some women say they enjoy it, or feel like goddesses. I am definitely not one of them. The main perk is that if I don't think about things, I can sometimes go several minutes on end forgetting about how uncomfortable I feel.

A Random Day

Today was one of those days where I just followed a parent around, with no real goal in mind, and just enjoyed it unfold.

I woke up around 9:00 am+ as usual, getting just under 8h of sleep. I saw the time on my phone, noted that I had forgotten to plug it to be charged last night, and felt thankful anyway that I had managed to get around 7h of sleep. I continued slowly rolling around in bed, waiting for the pelvic pains to lessen, as I browsed reddit. Then, around 10:00 am, I finally got up and went downstairs to have breakfast. At about 11:30 am, my Dad returned home from exercising, and I quickly went upstairs to take a shower, because I wanted to join him when he went for lunch with Uncle Joo Leong. Around 12 noon, it started to rain really heavily, and we both got into the car to head to Bukit Panjang.

From about 12:30 pm to 2 pm, we hung out with Uncle Joo Leong at the Bukit Panjang hawker centre. We ate Mee Sua for lunch, from one of the famous stalls in the hawker centre, and also had wu xiang. Then my Dad went to hang out with one of his old mentees from China, He Chao, and so we picked him up from his apartment and headed to a canteen in Ngee Ann Poly. Around 3:30 pm, we left and my Dad then drove to Clementi to pick up Ryan from his day care centre - one of the rare few days that Ryan actually decided to attend school. Then, we headed to Ghim Moh around 4:15 pm, so I could pick up my new passport from the Singpost outlet there. While I lined up to get my passport, Ryan and my Dad went to the Ghim Moh hawker centre to eat Chee Kueh. By the time we arrived home, it was about 4:45 pm.

And thus this is how my random day unfolded, just whiling time away until baby arrives, by following my family around.

NLB

Today marks exactly a month since I've been back home in Singapore. As always, the month seems to have simultaneously gone by fast, yet also slowly. Things have largely been uneventful, which in a pregnancy is always a good thing. I have fallen into a quasi-schedule of prenatal pilates on Tuesday, and following my parents/mama around on other days, interspersed with little meetings with old friends in between.

Today was also a Thursday, and hence also a day where Ryan has an art workshop at Ng Teng Fong Hospital in Jurong East. I tagged along so I could visit the library branch there after we had lunch. Before this, I had gone to the library in NEX a few weeks prior, and had just finished my last library book a few days ago. Even though I did bring some books back from the US with me, they tended to be slightly more serious pieces of work - and I have not been in the mood for anything weighty.

Thus, my objective today was to return those library books, and borrow some new ones. Much like my previous visit to the library however, I noticed something odd about where I found books that caught my fancy. Just like my previous visit (discounting the quick 5 min return trip I made to the NEX library to borrow Book 2 and 3 of a series a few days later), I would go through rows and rows of library books and find absolutely nothing that I wanted to read, but would then chance about just one row where multiple books looked appealing. As a result, all the books I would/have ended up borrowing all had authors with names close to each other in the alphabet. In my previous visit it was the MAs - Juliet Marillier's Blackthorn and Grim series, and Jamie Mason's Three Graves Full. This visit there's a little more variation - a mixture of HAs, GUs, and a lone GR; making up 3 crime thriller style books, 1 trashy historical romance, and 1 slim slightly literary looking book (my one concession to serious thought?)

Anyway, I am very thankful that in Singapore, libraries are so easily to access and are thoughtfully scattered around the island in convenient locales. It helps that they are cheerfully designed, and always look like welcoming spaces.

27 Weeks

Today I am 27 weeks pregnant. I am happy that yet another week has passed, which means I have only x amount of weeks left of being pregnant. Today was also the first time I've gone to a prenatal exercise class in Singapore, some 2 weeks after arriving back home in Singapore. These past 2 weeks have felt both slow in their passing, and quick when I think back of them. I hope by establishing a routine of sorts and meeting up more with my friends, I can both feel more comfortable and get time to pass a little quicker.

The one upside about being back in Singapore is that because I am walking a lot less, and able to walk at a slower pace (no getting trampled like one would otherwise on the streets of NYC), most of my right pelvic pain has disappeared. However I think because I swam using the breaststroke a little too aggressively on Saturday, I managed to reignite my pelvic pain again. Hopefully if I don't aggravate it, it the right pelvic pain will go away soon, because it really does make walking and other physical activities that much more unpleasant. The one downside of being back however, is of course the weather. It boggles the mind how hot it can get here in Singapore, even though a part of me knows NYC in July and August is utterly miserable as well, with the AC in NYC being dodgy to boot. 

Unsettled/Sentimental

Tonight is my last night in New York City. I've lived here for about 4 and a half years, and have had the last 6 weeks to come to terms with the fact that I'm leaving New York City - but these 6 weeks seem to have flown by in a heartbeat (caveat: ask me how I would have felt 6 weeks ago and I'd have replied that these 6 weeks would probably feel unending). While I'm not exactly the world's biggest fan of New York City, and God knows I've got very many negative things to say about this city, it has been the city I've lived in the longest besides Singapore, and the 'devil that I know'. I have adapted to this dirty cesspit of a city; learned to weave around the giant piles of poo, learned to passively aggressively fight back when people cut me in line at Trader Joe's, learned the thousand-yard stare in the subway when a panhandler comes through (even started to recognise a few regulars after a while), and learned how to quickly spot dodgy characters in my peripheral vision and give them a wide berth, all the while never losing my sense of politeness and friendliness.

This somewhat abrupt departure from New York City - as opposed to the original end-of-June that Jon and I had been anticipating for years - also comes at a very tumultuous time in my life. Jon and I are going to have a child. I'm worried about being separated from Jon for 3 months, and then another 2 months. I'm pregnant and physically uncomfortable, with pretty bad pelvic pains and hormonal insomnia. I'm worried about the 3rd trimester, giving birth, and taking care of a new born. I'm worried about moving to a new city and adapting to a life there. In September when I return to the United States with a 2 month old baby, we will be going straight to St Louis via Seattle. No more New York City for us - which also sort of works given that Jon and I currently don't stay in a very child friendly part of town. Basically it's a lot to digest at one go, and I haven't even begun to process my emotions in a healthy way. Instead I've been either avoiding them, or been preoccupied by other pressing matters. Tonight however, there is no more time left, and I am unable to not think about leaving New York City and all it entails, despite the fact that I still have other pressing matters to think about and things to do.

I know of course that everything will ultimately work out, and be fine. That I am very blessed to be so loved and coddled by my in-laws, my parents, my friends, and my spouse. Still however, the negative and worrisome emotions remain - at least for tonight. I just hope that I will somehow be able to get some sleep tonight despite my emotional state, or tomorrow's flight will be a misery. Fingers crossed.

Lao Ma Spicy

Today I met Shirin for lunch at Lao Ma Spicy, by NYU. We ended up staying there for over two and a half hours, just chatting and enjoying the repeated water top-ups by the nice wait staff. Today also happened to be one of the warmest days NYC has had in a while, so for the first time in months I actually wore a light wool coat out and it was just right.

In total, I walked about 2.3 miles today, which hopefully is enough exercise for today.