The Bub in the Belly

When we brought Ryan back from the hospital after he was born, Richard carried him through the house, introduced him to each room and told him that this was his home. On Saturday evening, after the Big Move, we went through the same ritual. We brought Ryan back to the old house and we took him to each room and showed him that we were saying goodbye.

Well, Ryan seems to have understood and seems to have no problems with the big change. I think two very important factors helped - first was that we have been bringing him to the new place quite frequently, so he wasn't freaked out when we stayed put there and second, I set up his playroom straightaway. He absolutely loves being in the playroom, surrounded by his books and toys, with endless activities to engage him. The playroom is not quite done yet, I'll put up some photos when it's finished.

As for Richard and I, we're happy about being in the new place. There is however a small negative - the renovation works aren't complete yet (although the contractor handed back the unit to us last week). We virtually moved into a construction site and this was amply represented by the huge scaffolding in our living room.

The contractor used the scaffolding to prepare the ceiling wiring for the lights in the double height space and they would also use it to install the lights when the lights were delivered. The good news is that our dining set and our Kartell lights came this week, which was much earlier than we thought. The bad news is that, since the lights were coming in just a week after the contractor handed the unit back to us, the contractor decided to leave their scaffolding in our living room till the lights came.

The scaffolding in our living room

Well, the lights were installed yesterday so the scaffolding is now gone. But we're still unsettled because some of the built-in furniture is not done yet and there are some little adjustments to be made here and there to the furniture that has already been installed. As the works aren't complete, we can't unpack all the boxes yet, so there're just boxes and boxes everywhere. We can't even tuck the boxes away neatly because we need to clear some space around the areas that still need to be worked on, so the boxes are in the most inconvenient spots at the moment.

Anyway, the rest of the works are expected to be completed next weekend so there's about one more week to go before we can finish unpacking.

The cat and the dog seem to be adjusting well. The first few days, I think they thought that we were on some sort of outing and that we would all go home soon to the old house. Tiger spent a lot of time on the terrace, pining for his unbounded outdoors (either that or he hid out in the household shelter) and Max spent a lot of time lying by the main door. They seem to have became much closer though, they hang out a lot together now - Richard says that they're combining forces to figure out a way out of the unit. After a few days, I think they've caught on to the idea that we're not leaving this place so they've settled themselves in. Both of them are eating well and look relaxed and happy.

I forgot to mention that, last Friday I brought Tiger to the vet for a follow-up on his kidneys and got some great news. Tiger had been eating well but had been refusing his fluid therapy for the past few weeks so I was a little worried. Well, the vet did some tests and the tests show that Tiger DOES NOT HAVE KIDNEY FAILURE!!! What incredible news! Apparently, his kidneys are working fine now so the vet thinks that the previous episode was probably a one-off inflammation or infection which we managed to treat in time. I was stunned! The vet did say though that this is a lucky result and we should monitor Tiger closely as he is an old cat. But I was just so happy about the news, how absolutely wonderful!