Good News!

We went to the midwife today for our 1st pre-natal checkup! I have been feeling really lousy for the past few months and I started feeling worse several weeks ago. When I miss my period, several thoughts went through my mind,"Is there something wrong with my body?", "Is my menstruation cycle changing now that I'm getting older?" and of course,"Am I pregnant?" After mulling over these for about 1 week, I decided to do a pregnancy test, hoping for good news, and thus, dispelling the suspicion that there may be something wrong with my body. I called hubby while he was at the doctor with Jovan (Jovan got an ear infection again...), and asked if it would be ok for him to pick up a test kit when he was at the pharmacy. 20 minutes later, they were back and hubby gave me the test kit and said,"ok, go do it now."


And yes, we got a positive result!

Hubby was really excited and was just bursting with joy and wanted to tell almost everybody. But after some discussion, we both agreed that we should wait till we have been to the midwife before we make the announcement (I think we were both had doubt if the test is correct, coz it was April's Fool Day that day!).

For the past 3 weeks, hubby has had problem trying to keep this secret. He would ask me,"Do you want to tell mom now?", "Don't you feel like you want to tell mom?", "Can I tell xxx?", "I can't tell xxx yet right?".

I, on the other hand, still couldn't believe that we're going to have a baby! We took some time before we get Ivan and after Ivan, we have been planning for another one but nothing much was happening. So I was walking around, looking at my tummy, still can't believe it is finally happening! Hubby started to tease me when I commented that I've put on weight (something which I say every now and then),"What if we find out that you're not pregnant?". And he started to repeat this almost everyday to the point where I am really getting annoyed.

Last night, he repeated this again. So I asked him,"Do you want me to be NOT pregnant? Why are you repeating this so often?" He looked a little surprised that I got annoyed because I usually quite good-natured with teasing or joking. "No, I believe that you're pregnant! It's just that you seem to have problem believing that you are." And he has stopped teasing from then on. ^_^

Today at the midwife, she estimated that the baby is about 8 weeks old and the expected delivery date is around beginning of December. How nice if this little one shares the same birth month as daddy!

Pappa pappa...

Ivan has recently discovered the slot on the door for the postman to slot in all our mails. A few weeks ago, he was lifting up the flap, position his little face beneath the flap (so he can see through the opening) and shouting,"mamma, mamma, mamma" It must be really loud in the stairway, especially since it echoed... My neighbours must all be thinking that the poor baby is being left all alone at home, but the truth is I was indoor with him! After several times of dragging him away from the door, I thought I seemed to have re channeled his focus somewhere else. The stairway was quiet for a few days...

Several days later, he was playing near the door when the postman dropped in our mails. The mails landed on top of him but he didn't jumped or got scared. Instead he picked up the mails and pushed them out of the slot! The postman (well, it was a lady that day) was still outside, probably slotting mails into our neighbour's letter hole, picked up the mail, looked through the slot at him and smiled,"Don't you want your mail today?" and push it back to him. Ivan smiled at her and happily brought the mail to me. I didn't even dare to apologise to the postlady, so embarrassing!

This week, he started lifting up the flap but this time he was shouting for pappa... Now my neighbours are probably gonna call the police for suspected child abuse... *sigh*

Update on hubby's Chinese name

I'm typing this post with Ivan sleeping on my lap and I have one arm cradling him, so I'm left with the other to type. Being a "one-finger" blogger drives me crazy, it takes forever to try to find those keys. It's funny how my brain works better when I'm typing with both hands.

I was skyping my mom the other day and we were talking about hubby's Chinese name. She asked,"Why pick the surname that sounds like die? Die die die. No good lah! He can take my surname." What a brilliant idea! 陈 (Chen)is so much easier for him. When I talked to him about it that night, he pronounced Chen perfectly! Yippee! Then we went on to try the second and third word one at a time. He was pretty good that night, he got the pronouciation almost correct!

I was all geared up and then I went,"Try to say them all together!" Hubby with big confidence in his face, smile and said in his usual cool manner,"陈 she young."

We need more practise.

Hubby got a real Chinese name!

Hubby finally got a real Chinese name, with surname and all! Thanks to my super best friend's best friend, who is now also my friend! (wow... getting complicating...) I must say that she is really good. I have requirements for my hubby's name (as always) - it has to reflect his personality, has a positive meaning and doesn't sound strange, i.e. not easy for others (people like me...) to give a nickname.

My friend suggested 戴旭阳. 戴 is adopted from a actor whom I like due to his puppy eyes, 戴阳天 (wow, their names are similar too! like brothers!) 旭阳 means rising sun. This suits him well. He is energetic and positive and is the sunshine of my life! Now we've got a good name, I have a challenging task on hand, to teach him to say and pronounce it correctly...

I started teaching the kids so that they can repeat it to him every now and then and help him to practise. Next I introduced him to his new Chinese name and explain the meaning. He likes it and is eager to say it. So I went,"戴旭阳, dai xu yang." I explain to him the 4 different intonations of the Chinese characters and try to help him to get the right tone.

Hubby ask,"like thigh?" "No baby, it's dai." "Die?" "No! Not die, DAI." "Ok, let try the next character. Xu." "Su?" "No, xu." "She?" "well close, she but you say it harder." "SHE?!" "Harder, not louder...." "Last character is yang." "Young?" "Good! but flatter." "young..." "Flatter not softer..."

Hubby said,"But baby, is this correct? Die she young? I sounds like I'm cursing someone to die young! That doesn't sound good..." I thought it may be a good idea to bang my head against the wall....

We'll continue to practise till hubby is good in saying his name and then like my super best friends said, we'll have the final challenge left - to teach him how to write....

Jovan is 9!

I realised that I'm one of those spontaneous blogger - blogging only now and again. I really admire those who blog regularly, my life is really boring compared to theirs...

Yep, Jovan is 9! It's hard to believe how time flies! I can still remember vividly when I was holding him as a small tiny baby. Hubby said that Jovan is half way to adulthood now (adulthood is 18 yrs old here in Sweden), well, that's one way to look at it! ^_^

Jovan placed some special orders for his birthday this year. He wants a football chocolate cake and wants me to cook his favorite dinner - tacos. Well tacos is not a problem but given my extremely limited baking skills, the football cake is a real challenge! I told him that I will try my very best and hopefully it'll turn out good.

My first cake was a failure! I baked it for 45 mins and the cake still felt like jelly. After awhile, the cake more or less settled and looks like a volcano!!! The sides are hardened but the middle is wobbly!! I had to throw it away and remake another one. The second one turns out alright and now I'm left with the most challenging part - decorating!! Hubby helped to whipped the cream and "supervised" the decorating process. Here are some pictures of the cake. Not so bad for first attempt, I think.






I did a small card to display to avoid further ruining the cake!

Jovan had no idea that I made another cake, he saw the first failure and tried to console me. He said that it's ok and that the cake is good enough, we just need to put on some whip cream and we can eat it! Such a good boy! He face really lit up when he saw the final product. It's not anywhere near good but he knows we put in our best effort to fulfill our promise.

Angel was really sweet too. She made Jovan a card (since she doesn't have money to buy him present). She took about 2 days to make this card, waiting for the paint and glue to dry properly.



She was trying to glue "Grattis" (congrats) on one side of the card but her estimation in spacing was a little off. Jovan managed to understand though so that's good! ^.^



She wrote "Happy Birthday. Best big brother. Happy Birthday." She also tried to draw Jovan and her playing bandy and a birthday cake. So sweet!

This year Jovan got a big watergun (Which can shoot up to 8m far! That's just crazy!It's so fun!), a lego motobike and a star wars lego from Eric.


Kiddos jumped into the bathroom immediately after this picture to start shooting!


Jovan built this first thing the next morning.


A good present from Eric.

Hubby has also been trying to look for new games for Jovan's Xbox and Gameboy but apparently, these are slowly phasing out and so we have problem finding any games. After some discussion, we decided that it is time to upgrade their set and we agreed on a Xbox 360, since mother-in-law and brother-in-law have Nintendo Wii, we decided that kiddos will have fun to be able to play something different when we visit them. We settled on a Xbox 360 set and the guitar hero set. We told kiddos that we have a super big surprise for both of them, which is a combined birthday present for both Jovan of Angel (since it's quite expensive, it's makes more sense to combine!) Kiddos almost went crazy when they opened the presents!!


Jovan and Angel crazy with excitement and little Ivan is clueless as to why they got so excited over a box...


Truly happy kids.

Kiddos were feasting their eyes on the boxes because daddy told them that they can only play tomorrow (it was late when we opened the presents because we were all watching the final of the singing contest for Sweden). Then Jovan, looking at the guitar hero box, said,"Daddy, it says Playstation 3."

Daddy cooly replied,"Oooook, don't open it yet then, I'll fix it."

Typical hubby....

My First Driving Lesson

Thursday was my first driving lesson with hubby as my coach. We set off to a training area which is near our place. On the way there, the car skidded because it was so slippery. I started to get nervous and thought maybe this was not such a good idea. Maybe we should start lesson after snow has melted or even when spring arrives.

When we arrived, the area was dark. There wasn't any lighting and we were the only one there. Hubby stopped the car, jumped out and said,"Ok, this is it baby!" hm... don't people usually start the first lesson with introduction to the various parts of the car??? Anyway, we switched places and hubby asked me to look for the various pedals. Brake, clutch, accelerator, all checked. "Ok, drive." said hubby. "Huh? How?" "Well, like how you did it in Singapore." My goodness! The last time I took my driving lesson in Singapore was like donkey years ago! I tried to remember as best as I could and the car finally started rolling forward. I started breaking into a cold sweat...

The next hour was just a big confusion (at least that was how it was in my head!). "Position your car." "Which side should you be driving?" "Change to second gear." "Turn left." "Turn right." "You're driving into the ditch baby." "Should you be turning at second gear?" The whole time hubby peppered with "Good baby." "That's was very good." "You're doing good baby." to keep my confidence up.

There was a few times when the car skidded or the car wasn't moving forward because it was so slippery! Hubby took over the driver's seat at one point to show me how to do it properly, I relaxed immediately when I was in the passenger's seat. The next minute, hubby parked the car on a slope (not so steep but the car WILL roll backwards once the brake is off), got out and said,"Now you drive." So I had to start the car at a slope which makes me sweat more despite the fact that it was minus 4 degrees outside... Hubby taught me how to start the car on a slope using the handbrake. So I pulled up the handbrake, moved into first gear and started to release the clutch. "The car is not moving! It's too slippery!" I panicked. Hubby replied in his usual cool manner,"It probably will start to move forward if you release the handbrake." "Oh ok, that sounds like a good idea." I replied feeling like a complete idiot!!!

After several times of saying,"Maybe we should go home now? It's late." We ended our first lesson. Hubby gave me a hug when we were exchanging seats. Hubby smiled, "That was very good for being the first lesson baby, and you smell a little."

That was my first driving lesson.

人日快乐!

It's the seventh day of Chinese New Year today, which is the "Birthday" of human. It is from the legend of 女娲 when she created heaven and earth, mountains and valley, streams and seas and then started to create animals and she created humans on the seventh day. That's how it comes about, at least from what I remembered! ^.^

Our Chinese New Year this year started with Ivan falling sick. He was coughing and running fever. According to the Swedish medical system here (which sucks!), we called the medical hotline (24hrs) to ask for advice. We were told that the flu is going around now and very common especially in small kids because their immune systems are not as strong. We were told that we have nothing to panic about, just give him water and keep him warm. And that we are free to call again if there are new development or we have other concerns. The problem is that it is torturing to see him so uncomfortable and tired! If we're back in S'pore, he would have been to the doctor and got medication and if fever continues for 3 days, our baby doctor will order a blood test! Here, they just want the small baby to fight the virus themselves so that they will get stronger. This sounds like a good idea but it is heartbreaking for all parents to see the slow process of recovery...

Before Ivan gets better, Lars fell sick. He got the same symptoms as Ivan, except that he was coughing much harder and it sounded deeper. He was coughing so hard that he cracked his rib bone! So on top of all the discomfort he was already suffering from, he was in a lot of pain. There wasn't much one can do to a crack in rib bone. The only thing to do was to take pain killers and wait for the crack to heal, which takes a looooonnnngggg time...

And with Ivan and Lars coughing away and suffering, Jovan fell sick too! He got the same symptoms and he was wheezing a little. Luckily I have the asthma medication which I gave him according to dosage.

Just when Angel was commenting that it seemed like she and I were the only healthy ones around, I started running slight fever and had bad headache... However, I got better within 2 days.

So our New Year was not entirely fun. We did decorated our apartment a little to be in the New Year mood, so that did help in lifting our mood. Thanks to my friends who are really sweet and thoughtful as always, to send me CNY decos every year. I miss you gals!


New curtain for the kitchen window.

2 small oranges for my alter.

Decos from my dear friends...


New curtains for the living rooms.