My joy and pain of giving birth

It’s been a full month now since Isaac was born, well strictly speaking it will be exactly one month only at 11.07pm, haha. That was the first time we heard his cry and saw this little being we call our own.

Labour was gruelling and not as easy as I had imagined, mainly I believe, because I spent half a day being monitored on the CTG, the whole time lying on the bed unable to leave the bed at all. Not to mention that no food was allowed during the 17 hours before labour could begin. After which, labour was induced by having my water bag unnaturally broken. :( Despite having a birth plan to go au natural, we decided that if there was no progress (I wasn’t dilated enough) induction could do us good. Thereafter everything fell into place but not without immense pain! OMG.

Pain was the strongest when I was about to be fully dilated and contractions became more intense. Thankfully I had laughing gas to help me tide through it when I inhaled at the right moment. Then the next bout of pain was felt when I started pushing. The action of pushing caused the most pain and it felt like severe menstrual cramps ×20. But finally I managed to have Isaac out! The nurses were tremendously helpful and encouranging, without them I wouldn’t have been able to persevere especially towards the end. Oh, and did I mention I gave birth without epidural or any other drugs in my body? (Major yay! Cos it really benefitted baby, he is not as crying a bub and more healthy than babies who were delivered with epidural.)

Overall my birthing experience was alright but could have been better especially the part where we were asked to go immediately to the hospital even though baby was not showing signs of readiness to be born. We were taught in the Bradley Method birthing class that it was best to let baby decide when he wanted to come out and not induce him out forcefully. Nonetheless, we are thankful that all is well and Isaac was delivered healthily!

My sweetheart

Girl 👭 or Boy 👬?

I’m 4 months now with small baby growing in my tummy 🌟 Upon my last checkup, my gynae told us baby is doing well and is healthy. Small baby was shy and didn’t let us see if it’s a girl or boy. Hmm… I’m having a feeling it’s a baby girl, we both hope it’s that way. Otherwise, a healthy baby boy is nice too. We’ll find out soon in July! Baby guai guai cannot hide yourself the next time ok! Mama and papa love you :) 👶💏❤️

Our teacher’s day trip to Malacca

A first trip with my colleagues and I quite liked it! :)

Our 2D1N trip to Malacca was kindly sponsored by the branch as a teacher’s day gift. Meals were all provided and there were yummy! Did a little bit of sight-seeing (didn’t quite remember the names though!), swept the night market at Jonker Street, shopped lots at Makota Mall, Aeon (previously known as Jusco) and slept my fair share on the bus! Enjoyed the company of my partner Shang 老师 All in all, I’m glad I signed up for this trip, a great rejuvenating way to start the Term break!

I shall let my photos do the talking (didn’t snap much though, awaiting more photos from the colleagues!)

A shot with our fun-loving principal, me in the middle and my buddy Shang

Carrot cake that smelled and looked great, but taste wise, ok la.

The little kitten left abandoned in a corner I saw that it didn’t have any food, so I pinched a small piece of bread and placed near it.

椰壳 椰壳

Very enterprising and helpful boy who manned the stall by himself 👍

Mandatory shot with the scenery. LOL

Group shot!

Had to end with a selfie!

Till next time

Happy Teacher’s Day!

Having been teaching as a full-fledged teacher for close to a year now, I must say that I’m pretty much loving my job :) It feels good going to school and knowing that you have children who listens to you and love you, frequently coming up to you asking for a hug. It is this sweetness in them that makes me feel happy teaching them everyday.

Well, of course there are times when I feel like I cannot manage them (when they get overly excited, haha 👶) but I think sometimes instead of wanting to ‘control’ them, we can try to share their excitement and get aroused in their interests too! 

I attended this talk today by a Chinese professor. He is well-known for having introduced this method of teaching children by appreciating and embracing both their strengths and weaknesses. It’s really amazing to hear personal recounts from him about how children transform after their parents start appreciating them and praising them not only for the things they have done well, but also for those that they do not succeed in. It’s quite abit that I’ve taken back from this talk, and i’m gonna start using it on my students when term 4 begins.

说你行就行！Applies to everyone.

Term 3 ended off well on a high note with the cookie and tea session (parents-teacher meet), [which I had the chance to plan with the help of fellow teachers, especially thankful  for 老师 (my colleague) who sort of walked me through the planning bit.

To be honest, I was both suprised and really touched by the gestures of the parents and of course the little ones :) A hug, a warm smile, a ‘Thank you’ would suffice for me, but I appreciate the gifts from the children and parents. Thank you very much! A group of parents from the parents support group had even secretly prepared lunch and individual gifts for us (specially designed by  them). [Our principal called us in on the pretext of having a meeting 🍬] and we were greeted by this, all designed and prepared by the parents:

 

It felt very heart-warming and I could really feel appreciated as a teacher, and for me, this is a very important driving force. Really appreciated the effort put in by the parents to prepare this. Teacher’s day has never carried so much significance to me before :*)

The personalised gift for each teacher, specially designed by two wonderful parents.

Yummy and cute cookies!

Lastly, to all teachers everywhere – A great big ‘Thank You!’

*Have a good break!

Preparations – Our new home

They always say that it’s the process and not the end product that matters. Well, I hope I get to enjoy and marvel in both the process and end product of our barn – our new home in Sengkang! (It seems like Sengkang/Ponggol’s the few options available for new flats, I’ve alr got a couple of neighbors among my marriage-ready friends.. Haha.) Okay, so we’ve finally settled on our interior design (ID) firm, and it was sure rigorous – we took abt a month (gosh!) to finally decide on the ID.

The concept we wanted was more modernistic but yet relaxing and neutral in terms of color. So our colour palettes were mainly brown and white, as we really wanted a home we could feel comfortable in, and soothing colours would do the job, well, for the most part.

Furnitures would be the next best thing to play ard with! We made a trip to The Furniture Mall and selected a few designs we fancied, oh, and there were those really gorgeous wallpaper we’d certainly like to have (though our ID advised against wallpapers as they wear and tear easily without proper maintenance). Furniture shopping is indeed tiring especially when there’s aplenty to choose from. We took down the dimensions and cost of the items we really liked, and that’s just the first trip. When we’ve more or less finalised on the interior design of our abode, Melvin (our designer) would advise us on the furniture to get, so as to complement the entire look.

Next up, we made a trip to Gain City to check out electronics. We had to get the aircon done up before renovation can proceed, as such, we made it snappy, purchased them and arranged for their guys to fix the installation. The AC is the one thing that Hubby cannot do without, especially with weather so humid. We’ll be checking out the washing machine, refrigerator next on our list.

For the time being, we will and have been making weekly trips to our neighborhood, familiarizing with the amenities ard. It’s really quite convenient and no complains so far.

Things will only get better!