Happy Birthday Mom!!!

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

It's Mom's birthday today (or today here in Singapore). When she was here a couple of weeks ago we celebrated with an early birthday cake, so that was nice.

We had a really nice day of shopping when she was here, that reminded me of the days we used to go down to Minneapolis for back to school shopping. Though, no turtle necks or cord pants anymore!

Mom has been an excellent role model for not only on how to be a parent but for being a person. Mom always puts her family first, from apparently acting as a make shift toilet when we were young, to sitting on an airplane for too many hours to count to come and see us , to always making s our favorite meals and cooking us picky eaters something separate.

Happy Birthday Mom!!! We love you and miss you.

Thank you Paulina for making the beautiful page for Mom.

Mom is always right

I should listen to her more.

Guess what Martin is doing right now? Drinking from a bottle with Basil. What type of bottle you ask? One of those Playtex nurser bottles that Mom insisted we buy with Oliver. We did with Oliver and he started nursing a couple of days later. Now Martin has taken an ounce of pumped milk. Yay!!!

All about August 2, 1969

On August 2, 1969:

• President Nixon visited Romania
• Bob Dylan makes surprise appearance at Hibbing HS Minnesota 10th reunion
• The Grateful Dead play live at Family Dog at the Great Highway (whatever that means)

but I know two people who weren't able to make it to the concerts, or to Romania with President Nixon.

Garry and Sandra were too busy tying the knot in Williamstown, Ontario.

Garry, a tall lanky fellow from Saskatchewan, with Buddy Holly glasses, but none of the coolness, met Sandra, a pretty nurse in training in Ontario, when he was in Ontario as part of belonging to the Armed Forces. I don't know much about their dating history, except their first double date wasn't with each other!

Both are from farming families. Garry's family were prairie farmers, and Sandra's family were more dairy farmers. Apparently when Garry's dad saw Sandra's family farm, he exclaimed "I couldn't even turn my tractor around on it!". Ahh, but Sandra's family farm had something that Garry's didn't. Maple sugar trees. Mmmm, maple syrup.

For their honeymoon, they took a cruise down the St. Lawrence. Ahh, young romance, what could be better. I know - staying married for (wait, I need the calculator) 38 years!!! That's almost as long as Paulina's been alive (tee hee!). And thanks to their positive role model of a marriage (as well as Joe's parents for being married over 40 years), the chance of me getting a divorce is statistically decreased. Thanks!!

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!!

All about Updates

Oliver
Oliver's rash looks pretty bad still. However, he slept a lot better last night, he woke up once around 11:00, it was really strange, I'm still not convinced he was awake. He was kind of grabbing at his shoulder and writhing around. He calmed down and went back to sleep when I sang to him. He slept rest of the night and woke up around 7:00 am in a really good mood. He was in a pretty good mood all day.

He still doesn't have any sores in his mouth (that I can see). Unfortunately, his friend Marie (Jose & Chantal's daughter) is now sick with the exact same thing, so I think Oliver gave it to her. In addition, the school says there is a case of hand-foot-mouth disease at school, so I'm pretty convinced that is what it is.

Mom
Mom got her staples out on Monday and is now getting around with a cane. She can navigate the stairs with limited difficulties and Dad is making her do all her exercises.

All about Friday Nights

On Friday nights, we like to go eat at the Food Republic (food court) at Wisma Atria, one of the malls on Orchard Road. We go early so that we can get a table by the window. Why, beside the window? Because there is a huge construction project going on next door. They are building a condo building next door.

Either we've been watching too many episodes of Mighty Machines or construction has become a lot more fascinating. It's fun to watch to figure out what they are trying to do.

I always have the chicken katsu, which I share with Oliver. Joe has a variety of different foods.

Afterwards, we either go to the bookstore, go to the book store, or go get some Italian gelati.

Some misc. updates:
- Mom has been home since the beginning of the week. She's doing really well, is able to do the stairs with a cane, and Dad has been both her personal trainer and personal cook.
- We found the feet to our bedroom furniture. They had fallen behind the drawers, which we didn't know until one of the drawers got stuck. Can't figure out why the other drawers could close. Joe thinks he found the parts for the dresser.
- Haven't found my knitting yet, but we have lots of boxes still to open from Nassau.

Monday Craft Update

Yes, I know it's Tuesday. Joe was busy setting up the server (no the website isn't back yet), so I had no internet last night.

Mom is now home. She's doing well, and I'll find out more when I call her in a couple of hours.

Actually not a bad week for stitching. I got about 4-5 hours done this week. I have about 20% of the background on the seahorse square left and I've started the crab square. I've done about 50% of the border, and worked on some of the background and the crab. It's about 5% done I'd say.

I haven't found my other projects yet, but once I find the knitting, I'll be making some baby balls as gifts.

All about Stuff

Quick update: Mom was able to walk up some stairs with a cane and is making good progress. Should be home on Sunday or Monday.

The movers came today. Let's just say we have a LOT of stuff. A LOT. Now, part of the problem is that we couldn't really sort through our stored stuff in Canada and purge, as it was so rushed, and the other part of the problem is that we are pack rats. With an apparent love of books. Which shouldn't be surprizing as I have already bought 4 books for myself, Joe has bought 3 books and Oliver has 2 new ones since we arrived about 8 weeks ago. That is more than a book a week. And we also buy e-books, so they don't even take up shelf space!

First the good news. It appears that everything is here. We can't find the legs for the dresser or two legs for the linen chest (though 2 legs were in the drawers - so why wouldn't the other 2 be in there and why aren't the dresser legs in the drawers as well). But not everything is unpacked yet (ha ha ha), so don't need to panic yet. We also did leave a few boxes in Milton, so they could be there for all we know.

All our dishes are appearing to be in tact.

Second, the bad news. The glass table top for the coffee table is broken in two. They (the movers in Canada), put it in a box, with some paper. Not even bubble wrapped. The bedboard is cracked on the back, but is useable. We are missing nuts & bolts for putting the entertainment unit together (which we can't really recall what it looked like - so that's proving to be a challenge).

Third, the medicore news. There is SO much unpacking to do. I hope we can find space for it all. In theory we should, as 800 square feet + 1400 square feet, should fit in 2500 square feet. Right? Basilia worked in the kitchen all day. Frankly, she's run out of places to put things. It is box central around here.

There is a lot of purging to do as well. Anyone want a Windows Server 4 book?

We are going shopping tomorrow for china cabinet in order to have a place to put all our lovely plates from the wedding. Oh, and a new coffee table.

In case you were wondering what happened with Oliver during the move, he went over to Alex & Marie's house and played cars all day.

All about Baby "Tobe" II

First off, Mom is doing well and sat up today. However, she is still groggy from the pain medicine as she let Dad win at cards!

Had another doctor's appointment today. By my calculations I'm 32 weeks pregnant, the doctor says the baby is measuring at 33 weeks - so time is ticking away!!

The baby has also turned, which explains all the kicking in the ribs I'm getting. The placenta is also looking good, and there is plenty of water in there.

My hemoglobin is a touch low, so I'm to eat more beef. No problem! I had a steak for lunch. Yummy.

Now, Joe and I don't want to find out the gender, but I think the doctor let it slip. While doing the ultrasound, she said, "there's the legs and there's the thing". Confirming (I believe), my belief that baby tobe is a boy. I wish she hadn't slipped up though. Oh well.

Here is some information on baby development at week 33:

• Amniotic fluid is at its highest level during your pregnancy.
• Your baby's head size has increased 3/8ths of an inch due to rapid brain growth.
• Neurons and synapses are developing in huge numbers -- forming connections in your baby's brain will give him the skills he needs to thrive as a newborn. This week, he may be able to coordinate sucking and swallowing with breathing.
• While most of his bones are hardening, his skull is quite pliable and not completely joined. The bones will be able to move slightly to make birthing easier.
• You baby takes intermittent deep breaths -- of water! That's okay, though since she gets oxygen from the placenta. This breathing exercises muscles and encourages her lung cells to produce more surfactant (a protein essential for healthy lung development).
• If your baby is a boy, his testicles will be descending from his abdomen into his scrotum. Sometimes one or both testicles won't move into position until after birth.
• Your infant is now 17.2 inches (43.7cm) long and weighs 4.23 pounds (1918gm).

Now, doctor said that the baby was 2.1 - she must have meant 2100 gm (hence saying its 33 weeks) or 4.6 pounds! Yikes! No wonder she keeps saying the baby is big. Oliver was born at 7 pounds 15 ounces.

All about School

First off, an update. Dad called this morning (evening in Winnipeg) and the surgery went really well and he left Mom doing a crossword puzzle. So Mom, this blog's for you. All about your favorite grandson (and favorite 2 year old), so get better so you can come and read this blog at home.

Oliver has been in school now for a over a month. He just moved into the Nursery 1 class, from the Toddler room. When we first signed Oliver up for school, he was very very excited. He kept saying "I need a backpack. I need a backpack for school." So Oliver and I went shopping to United Square by ourselves. We took the MRT, Oliver walked the entire time, we stopped and had ice cream, and Oliver picked out his backpack. We had such a nice Mommy and son outing, which we rarely do. This is what he chose, over Dora and Thomas.He loves it. He has never seen the Cars movie. We have to take it when we go out, its now become our diaper bag.

Back to the topic at hand. He is loving school. He wears a uniform, there are are two kinds, a formal one and an informal one.

This picture you've seen on Joe's blog:


And here is the informal uniform:

He's been learning Mandarin, he can sing a little song in Mandarin, and today, he was pointing at my face and saying "funny" words. I think he was saying face or hair or forehead (???) in Mandarin to me. Apparently, he can also count to 10 according to the teachers, but I haven't heard it.

Here are some pictures of artwork from school. For his Father's Day gift, see Joe's blog.

All about hip surgery

Mom is going in for hip surgery today.

So I went onto Wikipedia to give you some interesting facts about hips and hip surgery.

The earliest hip surgeries used ivory as a replacement for the bone.

Dr. San Baw, from Burma did over 300 hip surgeries from the 1960s to the 1980s. He used ivory as it worked better and was cheaper than metal in Burma. But ivory is now of course, banned.

Dogs can also get hip replacement surgery.

Once an uncommon operation, hip replacement is now common, even among active athletes including racecar drivers Bobby Labonte and Dale Jarrett (who? and who?).

Having hip replacement surgery takes you one step closer to being the Bionic Woman (or man). Not sure if Mom will be able to run faster than a speeding car though. It's only the one hip, so if one leg starts running faster, will she run in a circle or will she hop? And what if that speeding car is driven by a racecar driver that has had hip surgery? Ah, those ancient questions that can never be answered.

Good luck today Mom!!!