After polishing the last book off my reading plate, I was ready to dive in for more of Han Suyin. I hunted this book up at the library… and can I just say how great the library system is here? when I requested the book on the online book search, it said they did not have it but offered the option to place a suggestion on their purchase list. A few weeks later, I received a notification that the book was now available! This story was so different from the other one I read by the same author. I was really keen to read this one after learning about the author’s history of how she had to leave Hong Kong and relocate to Singapore. This story revolved around the British colonial period and Malayan Emergency of the 1940s and 1950s. At the same time with the circus and drama going on in the Malaysian political scene, with old grievances being dragged from the grave and finger pointing games… the historical setting in the book really added some context and background to everything that was...

One of the times I look forward to the most every week is Saturday mornings. Not just because I don’t have to go to work, but it’s generally the time hubby and I have our ‘just us’ time. On Saturday mornings, instead of being jarred awake at the sound of the alarm before groggily reaching over to the bedside table to switch it off, my body clock nudges me awake gently and I let my eyes peek open to the glorious feeling of being able to snuggle under the covers as long as I want to. Then hubby and I exchange good mornings before we share some pillow talk… simply lying back in bed and just talking. Sometimes we talk about ‘important’ stuff like about the changes that will happen when little boy blue arrives or things we need to get done around the house or career plans; sometimes it’s very deep and chim stuff like our thoughts on a sermon we heard, a book ‘we’ (read: I) read; or casual stuff like something we chatted about to someone we bumped into or a funny joke we heard, a movie ...

About time for a pregnancy update. I’m about 23 weeks along. Bump is definitely getting more pronounced and really feeling the stretch. At 23 weeks baby is about 30cm long (head to toe) and weighs about 500g. Here’s a recent scan from a couple weeks back. Proof of baby’s blue status indicated by the arrow (courtesy of the ultrasound technician).

One of the frequent comments made to hubby following a Q&A session on how I’m doing is something along the lines of… “Are you looking after Serene?” “Make sure you pamper her lots and lots!” “Remember, lots of back rubs, foot rubs, any kind of rub” So here is evidence of hubby’s efforts to looking after me. Yes folks, my hubby can cook! Fried noodles… and it was yummy! Muaks, hon!

In response to the question at the end of this post

I’m just about at the halfway mark. 20 weeks down, about 20 more weeks to go. Incidentally, I never used to get this whole tracking in terms of weeks thing. Every time I used to ask a preggy friend how far along she was, and she would say such and such number of weeks, I’d automatically convert it in my head and likely respond with “ oh, so that would be about such and such number of months? ”. Sometimes I used to wonder “ why not just say it in months? ”. But now here I am doing the exact same thing. Apparently it’s some kind of pregnancy lingo thing, probably picked up along the way from all the doctor/midwife speak, reading pregnancy articles and talking to other friends who’ve been pregnant before. On top of that, after the first month or so, you realise what a snail’s pace you’d be moving at if you have to wait a whole month before you can tick off another milestone. I get it now. I felt my first jiggle about a week ago. It was hard to tell at first as it was so faint that I thoug...