The Bub in the Belly

Christmas is just two weeks away but we haven't got our tree yet. Our new place isn't ready for a tree yet, the contractor will need to make one or two more trips to finish up the renovation work, plus there are still lots of boxes (packed and unpacked) lying about. We're working on it! Getting everything ready in time for Christmas is definitely the goal and that includes getting the tree. Having a Christmas tree is a must because without one, we just don't feel as though we celebrated Christmas properly.

We do have a small plastic tree, which we usually place on the dining table, together with other Christmas decorations. As our new dining table is much smaller than our previous one, I thought I would give this small tree away. Just before I put it in the "outbox", I decided to show it to Ryan and let him have a little fun with it.

Ryan showed quite a lot of interest in the small tree. I got him to play a little game with it - meaning of course I got him to hang some "ornaments" on it. I used these small wooden Easter eggs with strings attached, which were the perfect size for hanging on the small tree.

The tree is only a little shorter than Ryan, so he could reach the top of the tree, which as you can see from the multiple eggs, was his favourite spot.


Actually Ryan was a little apprehensive when I introduced the tree to him because the plastic leaves were hard and prickly to touch. So I quickly grabbed the eggs which were nearby (we had just finished playing with them) to try to maintain his interest in the tree. I was hoping that the fun of hanging the eggs on the tree would overcome the discomfort of touching the prickly leaves, and fortunately, it worked. He thoroughly enjoyed the activity and I hope he now has good vibes about Christmas trees.

The tree is still in Ryan's playroom, still bearing the Easter eggs. I can't bear to give it away now!

I took a few days off work this past week to unpack and to stick around the apartment to wait for various deliveries (furniture and lights) and various workmen (electrician, plumber). I had Ryan with me in the mornings and he went to his nanny in the afternoons when I ran errands and bought some small items for the apartment. On Wednesday, Ryan's nanny fell sick so Ryan stayed with me the whole day, which meant I did very little unpacking and lots of playing. On Thursday, I went back to work and boy was it a tough day, as I had to prepare for a hearing on Friday and Saturday. Friday was more than full - I got home from the office at about 9 pm. Then I was at work again on Saturday from 9.30 am till 5.30 pm.

Richard was wonderful - he looked after Ryan the whole day on Saturday and had absolutely no problems. They had a great adventure - I'll pester him to write a post about what they got up to.

Richard also went solo on Sunday afternoon while I had some "me-time" - I joined the SMH mummies for high tea at The Ritz Carlton, which was a wonderful way to reward myself for a tiring week. It was also a farewell for Sue Lin, who is leaving for USA later this month. There were 12 of us and I think we all had a great time, relaxing and chatting away.

High tea at The Ritz Carlton

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!

After all the filtering, sorting and de-cluttering, we managed to finish packing in good time for the Big Move on Saturday afternoon. Ryan's nanny kindly agreed to take him for the day so we dropped him off in the morning at her place.

Bye bye, old friend.

I mentioned in a previous post that we have a LOT of stuff, some sentimental, some useful, some utterly outdated and irrelevant. It's not that we want to hang on to all this “treasure” rather, we don't have the time to consider whether an item should go or stay and, there isn’t a lot of pressure to sort everything out because, fortunately (or unfortunately), our present house is large enough for all the clutter to "disappear" neatly. I read this article on Apartment Therapy on de-cluttering, which basically said the same thing: the lack of time can lead to accumulating clutter:

"We live in a culture where we're supposed to be busy, working on this working on that, making progress, getting things done. But if this level of activity crosses over into a frenzy (always going out, never staying in, never having a moment of nothing in your day) there is no time to be thoughtful about what you keep around you or how you really want to live. And if you're in a state of busy-ness most of the time, you're not only more likely to hang on to things you don't love but you're more likely to keep buying things too!"

This is definitely the case for us. Richard and I are starved for time. Our family, work and social commitments are heavy and we want to meet all these commitments, be it a deadline at work, a walk in the park with Ryan, curling up on the couch with our pets, a game of mahjong with friends, or a family trip overseas. As a result of all this rushing about, we tend to buy indiscriminately and sometimes in bulk. We "buy first, think later". We simply don't have time to stop and consider whether the item is going to be loved/used or not.

So, I have clothes and bags which are brand new, with their tags still on and, yes, still in the shopping bags that they came home in. I have brand new shoes which I'd forgotten I had. I have CDs still in plastic wrap, because I don't have time to think about getting the disk changer out and deciding which CD stays in and which goes out.

We just don't have time to keep up with what we bring home.

Actually, ever since Ryan came along, we slowed down the buying, because now we don’t even have time to shop! On weekdays, by the time we get off work, fetch Ryan from his nanny and have dinner, the shops are already closing. If we still want to go out at night, we end up at the bookshop which stays open late. Weekends are shopping-free as they are devoted to Ryan and he isn't into shopping. Whatever trips we do make to the mall are short and focused - we zip in and we zip out.

We do still have our weaknesses and when we have the chance to buy things, old habits die hard and we still buy like there’s no tomorrow. We buy five to ten books and magazines at one go (when Ryan was starting his library, I would buy 30 at a time). We hardly have time to take them out of the shopping bag before we go and buy another lot.

Nevertheless, it is true that, overall, we now buy much less than we used to. So, hopefully, that will take care of the front end of the problem.

Next, we have the back end - the storage issue.

First the paper problem. we have stacks of old (paid) bills and other historical documents like bank statements. The correct thing to do, I suppose, is to keep perhaps 3 to 6 months' worth of statements and discard the oldest one when you get a new one. We just don't have the time for that level of organisation. We probably get more than twenty bills/statements every month and, after a long day at work, I'm certainly not in the mood for sorting and filing into individual files. What we do is leave it in a pile and when the pile gets too high, we do the filing at one go. Our sole aim is to file everything in so that things are neat and tidy, which already takes up a few hours each time (with two of us on the task!). We don't have time to discard the old statements, so our archive continues growing.

Come to think of it, that is how I ended up with a huge collection of clothes hangers. Each time my clothes came back from the laundromat on hangers, I would just hang them up in the wardrobe. When I put on the outfit, I would throw its hanger into a large box next to the wardrobe. The outfit goes to the laundromat and comes back with a new hanger and I hang it up again. I've been doing this for years. When I packed up my wardrobe last week and went through the hanger box, there were HUNDREDS of hangers in it. I was shocked!

I also found that we have about twenty caps which we accumulated from all the events we attended (actually, Richard had a period where he had long hair and wore a cap all the time, but that was a long time ago back in university). I also collected the pillows from all the bedrooms - I ended up with ten! Ten pillows! Every time we bought new ones, we kept the old ones because they were still good and we thought that our guests might need them - but I'm sure we didn't realise we had saved ten!

Well, we threw out all the old and irrelevant documents (it took us one entire night to sort through all the files) and we gave away all the extra hangers, pillows and caps, and more.

Then there was the other stuff I mentioned in my previous post - odd earrings and buttons, old red packets, stationery and stuff like beauty product samples, essentially stuff which I never had time to properly consider. Many of these items have become un-usable or irrelevant. I never intended to hang on to these things, my thinking was simply to keep them for a little while and deal with them later. Of course, "later" never happened, and I never had the time to sort everything out, until now.

I gave away what was still useful and I threw away the rest. I told myself that, if it was not "beautiful, useful or loved" it would have to go. I was never more happy to see a passed expiry date - it made my task so easy. Clothes and shoes that no longer fit or which we no longer wear were given away. All our bedsheets (about 10 sets) had to go, because they were queen-sized and wouldn't fit our new king-sized bed.

The last category of stuff was the most difficult - things that were still "beautiful, useful or loved" but just old. The stereo set in our bedroom works fine (and we do use it) but it is nearly 20 years old. My wok and some of my pots and pans are ten years old, although I still use them. Some of our electrical appliances are also old, although we still use them, like our rice cooker, our iron and our fans.

I gave them all away. In time, we will replace some of them with new versions.

All this de-cluttering meant there was less to pack which was good because, again, we didn't have a lot of time. We could only pack late at night when Ryan was fast asleep and some nights we were too tired from work/play so we didn't even bother. We tried to be as consistent as we could though, and I'm pleased to say that we now only have a few bits here and there left to pack and it looks like we'll be good to go on Saturday.

As I mentioned, we've been making good progress with our packing, assisted in large part by the departure of our furniture.

I mentioned that we are not able to take most of our existing furniture with us and that we put up online advertisements to sell the furniture off, which was pretty slow-going, so I started giving the furniture away. I got the idea after looking in the SMH forum for people who needed things. There was a lady who was looking for a small shoe rack so I posted in her thread that I had one that I could give her and suddenly I started receiving emails from other people who were interested. It was too easy. I started advertising to give away the rest of our furniture and we got tons of responses, even for items which I never imagined anyone would want.

One couple came in their MPV to take away our TV console, a small cabinet, our large shoe cupboard, our extra dining table with 4 chairs, one bookcase, two wall-mounted mirrors, two light fittings, one small wardrobe, Ryan's chest of drawers, and some small items. They had to make five trips. They were a lovely couple with three children (including a pair of twins) and it was nice to meet them.

Other items we gave away - a smaller wooden shoe cabinet, an aquarium, a cat bed/house, two queen beds and some electrical items. I also gave away my huge wardrobe. I was a little worried that it would be hard to get rid of because, when I bought it, the shop told me that it was too large to fit in some homes.

Just a note that the people who responded to our advertisements didn't appear to be poor or needy. The couple who took more than half our house had their own MPV. The couple who took my huge wardrobe wanted it for their apartment which they were renting out. I responded to an advertisement by a lady looking for cotton wool, cloth diapers, nappy liners and a rubber changing mat. These are cheap items so when I met up with her to give her the items, I was a little surprised to see that she didn't look at all like she was in need of money. She even told me that she was planning to buy them from the store if she couldn't get any responses. So these are people who are just extremely prudent with their money.

We did donate some items to a welfare home: our rice cooker, airpot, two fans, pots and pans, extra tables, extra chairs, extra clothes hangers, extra pillows (we have ten!), old bedsheets, old clothes, stationery, bags, shoes, etc.

I also managed to sell off Ryan's jumperoo, one of his large ELC toys plus his brand new never-been-used steriliser.

What was also interesting was that, when the ladies changed their minds and decided not to take up the item they had expressed interest in, many lay the blame on their husbands - "Discussed with my husband and he doesn't want it" or "My husband said it is not child-friendly" or something like that.

I did receive some strange responses - one lady saw all my furniture advertisements and emailed me asking if I had any unwanted and unused baby items to give her. I replied that I could give her some new baby bottles and old toys and she told me that she would take the bottles. She said she couldn't accept any old baby clothes "because of hygiene reasons". I was a little stunned - did she think my baby wore dirty clothes? or did she think that I would give her urine-soaked cloth diapers? doesn't she wash her baby's clothes before use in any event? Come to think of it, I didn't even offer her any old clothes!

Another lady who wanted to buy our mattress asked me so many ridiculous questions that I started to get annoyed. She herself had advertised for a pre-loved queen-sized mattress and I responded to say that I had one, brand new, still-wrapped-in-plastic and would sell it to her for $60. She replied asking what size it was and whether it was brand new as she was only looking for a brand new mattress. So, this was weird - she had advertised for a queen-sized mattress, why would I be offering her some other size? She had also advertised for a pre-loved mattress, so how come she now wanted a brand new one? Anyway, didn't my email say it was brand new? She also asked me what the mattress brand was and she wanted photos. My goodness. Photos of a mattress still wrapped in plastic?

Well, I kept my cool and gave her the answers she wanted. I even asked her what parts of the mattress she wanted me to photograph, hoping that she'd see how nonsensical her request was and tell me oh, photos are not necessary after all. I was flabbergasted by her response - she wanted a photograph of the mattress tag showing the brand! Did she think I can't read? Of course, she also asked me to photograph the front, the back and the sides! She said that this mattress has a massage function plus a soft side and a hard side - but come on, can you really see whether all those features are working from a photograph?

Well, I tried to be nice and I responded to tell her that I would send her the photos but that I was surprised at her request because I surely wouldn't produce something different when she turns up at my house for collection. Her response? She asked me, "How long have you had this mattress?" Gosh, I really wanted to call off the deal at that point. So I wrote back and told her frankly that, this was getting a little annoying as I had already said that it is a Seahorse Diamond queen-sized mattress, still wrapped in plastic and, for $60, she would not be able to find a better deal and that we were initially going to donate it to a charity to save us the hassle. After a day or two, she wrote back to say that she really wanted the mattress. She apologised and explained that she wanted to find out if the mattress was dusty as she wanted to let her one-year old son sleep on it.

Now, here is what I don't understand. The mattress is still wrapped in plastic (actually two layers of plastic) - so how can it be dusty? And what makes her think that I don't keep my house clean and free of dust? Anyway, why didn't she just ask me if it was dusty instead of asking how long I have had it? The latter doesn't necessarily lead to the former. What difference does it make if her one-year old son is going to sleep on it? Does she mean that adults can sleep on dusty mattresses? Even if the mattress is not hospital-grade clean, surely she should clean the mattress regularly?

Sigh.

Ok, that was a bit of a rant. But I've got it out of my system now. :) I sent her the photos and she's coming to pick up the mattress on Saturday morning. Hopefully she won't ask me to sign a guarantee or to swear on my son's life. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one.

So, yes, back to the furniture. We've got one last item to deal with, which is a vintage wooden radio console with an attached LP player. Richard had it painstakingly restored but we haven't had a spin on it for years now so it's time to let it go. We made an inquiry at Lorgan's Retro Store to see if they'd take it and hopefully they will, otherwise it's going to be a tough issue.

So these past two weeks have been about posting advertisements, dealing with all the responses, answering all the queries, lining up the individual collection times, negotiating prices, meeting up with various characters, etc. The funny thing is, as I managed to give away/sell some items, I started looking for more items to give away/sell. It was addictive! Although it was hard to let go of some of the items due to sentimental reasons, overall I felt more happy than sad. I was wondering if it was because we were unburdening ourselves of stuff, but then I remembered that we have the same amount of new furniture in our new home - we're just replacing and renewing the old. So, then I realised that I was feeling happy because, by letting go of our old stuff, I was able to open myself to newer and better things. I was moving on.

So, back to packing!

With us being so busy, it was only appropriate that Ryan's costume for his end-of-term Playclub party would be a bumble bee!

Err, no, not the one from Transformers. The one that goes "Bzz". Yes, I know most bumble bees (and most animals with wings) are usually portrayed by the feminine gender, but there was really very little alternative. I was actually racking my brain trying to think of an animal costume that did not require head gear as Ryan is not fond of anything on his head. I finally decided that I would make a spider costume and when I discussed it with Richard, he said we could also try a bumble bee. To which I told him that I had considered it but it would only work if Ryan would wear the antennae, and I was doubtful he would. So off to Spotlight I went to see what I could use to make a costume. Lo and behold, there was this wonderful bumble bee headband. I prayed and prayed that Ryan would take to it... and he did! Of course, I had to give him lots and lots of praise and compliments - "Wow! You look so nice!"! He was very amused by it and kept shaking his head to make the antennae bounce up and down!

So, from there it was easy. We only had to make the wings and dress him in something yellow and black. We did buy some wings but they were actually butterfly/fairy wings so I wasn't really happy with them. Also they were pink and Richard was quite firm that we had to paint out the pink. As it turned out, the butterfly/fairy wings were too big so we had to make a fresh pair of wings out of a clothes hanger and a laundry bag. I sewed a "pocket" onto the back of a romper to slot in the hanger and secured it with some ribbon round the arms and this was the result.

Parents were asked to come in animal costume or in Christmas-inspired gear. Richard and I turned up with reindeer headbands (bought from Daiso)

This being the last class of the year, Ryan received his certificate and we also got to celebrate Christmas. Yes, it's more than a month away but who would give up a chance for some good Christmas cheer?

Ryan getting his certificate and a big present from Santarina

Next term, one of the Mandarin teachers will not be with Ryan's class as she is being rotated to the class next door (that's the lady in the Christmas hat next to Santarina in the photo above). We will miss her, she is really great with the children.

So, that was the end of Playclub for this term. Ten weeks pass so quickly when you're having fun!

We've been oh so busy and I feel like there should be three of me to tackle everything that's been on my plate this last week. I shall do a proper in-depth update in the next few posts, for now let me just get the "what did we do all week?" stuff out of the way.

Well, last Saturday, we went over to Rahul's new condo for Richard's Junior College class almost-annual reunion. It was great fun for me too because I'm familiar with the gang - Richard and I are from the same Junior College and same graduating year plus I always tag along for the get-togethers. This was the first time that the gang was meeting Ryan though. We had lots of good fun and ended up staying later than we thought we would.

Ryan at S03G reunion

The next few days were spent getting our packing into high gear. We had a lot of furniture which we had decided not to bring with us to our new home so our first priority was to see if they could find good homes. There was some sentimental value attached to some of the pieces so we didn't want to simply throw them away. We put up some ads on the internet to sell the pieces (for ridiculously low sums) but they weren't moving quickly enough so I decided that I would just advertise on the SMH forum that we were giving the items away for free. I got responses literally minutes after I posted on the forum. It was so competitive, people were willing to "queue" for each item!

I also looked out for people who advertised that they were looking for stuff. For some I just gave them what they needed for free and for others, I sold the items to them for a small payment.

I will always remember this exercise because of all the different people I met - it was a real eye-opener, to say the least. Maybe I'll write a separate post on it another day.

Anyway, the next part was the packing. All the furniture leaving our home actually forced us to pack faster. Our TV console was taken from us - so all our electronic stuff had to be packed up. Our large shoerack is gone - so all our shoes are also packed up. My huge wardrobe is gone (!) - so my clothes are all in boxes now. Ryan's wardrobe has also been snapped up - so his clothes are packed up in a large suitcase. So lots of packing already done but we still have lots more to get through. I'll do a proper post on our packing once we are more or less done.

Wednesday was a public holiday and we spent the afternoon with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra. Richard and I used to enjoy going to the SSO but we have not been to a performance for a very long time, so this was a great opportunity to get re-acquainted. However, this was not the grown-up version - this was the annual Babies Prom! This is a basic introduction to the orchestra, tailored for the little ones. The conductor, known as "Uncle Peter", was basically the emcee at a huge children's party. Everything was fun, fun, fun! Some of the older children were even invited to conduct the orchestra (that was a real hoot!)

Ryan was still sleeping when the performance started and I was thinking that he might actually sleep through the whole thing but fortunately, once the orchestra started playing, he woke up. Having just woken up, he took some time to warm up but I suppose that the important thing was that he left with a big smile.

Ryan at SSO Babies Prom 2010