Double digits!

It's now 99 days until I'm due for one of the biggest and possible most traumatic events of my life. It's down to the double digits and counting. I'm glad to say that I feel better than I have since finding out about the baby even though the kicking can be downright uncomfortable and gives me a constant feeling of needing to pee, depending on where the baby is kicking. Right now, it's favourite spot is way down south close to or directly into the bladder.

The weather is great, sunny and warm even though yesterday it was pissing rain all day but even then there was a certain cosiness about the day. Husband and I have planned one last trip together before the baby comes and we've decided to go back to Gothenburg cos we loved it so much the last time. Plus with me being about 30 weeks along at the time, we think it's best that we go someplace we're familiar with so we don't feel the need to rush around so we get to see everything. We just want to take it easy and enjoy the great food and sighst that Gothenburg has to offer. I just hope it will not rain too much since that's is also what Gothenburg is famous for. Cross our fingers!


I just realised that in my last post I said I was 24 weeks along but that is way off. I'm actually 25 weeks+5 days...now it's all about counting the weeks and days until B-day. I'm sleeping a lot better and through the night but I still get tired sometimes during the day and am forced to take naps that can actually drag for 2 hours. I surprise even myself at just how much I can sleep nowadays but the main thing is that I feel good and quite happy. Well, except for when the hormones run amok on me and I get emotional about the slightest thing.

A few nights ago, I started obsessing about my belly button. My ugly, discoloured and starting to pop outwards belly button. Ugh! Even thinking about it makes me cringe cos I actually do dislike the way it looks, especially now. But that night, I was hysterical about it. I spent over 2 hours trying to clean it with poor husband trying to talk me out of my obsession and trying to distract me with everything he could think of. I started bawling my eyes out and screaming for the husband to leave me alone so I could clean my belly button. How awful does that sound right? It's just a damn belly button! But that night, it meant the end of the world to me. I can laugh about it now but it was serious business that night.

But on a positive note, I've taken up baking again. My passion that had been temporarily abandoned has given me renewed spirit and I willingly turn on my oven and Kitchen Aid once more, to the delight of dear husband and of cos his colleagues who also get to enjoy the results of my new found inspiration since I don't want husband to be eating 12 muffins by himself so i make him bring them to work to share the love.

So the other day, I made pandan muffins which is not the most common type of muffins to make since pandan leaves are difficult to come by in these parts. But I managed to buy a bunch of the leaves and since then I have made nasi lemak, pandan muffins and perhaps green bean soup next. Husband was utterly unconvinced when he came home and found the blended pandan leaves and green batter. All he could say was, why would you put vegetables into muffins? Vegetables are not supposed to be in something as great as muffins.

But he had to eat those words when cautiously and very suspiciously, he took a bite out my pandan muffins. He could not stop eating them that night and took the rest to work the next day. Again, met by curiosity and a dollop of suspicion, his colleagues each nibbled their first bite before wolfing the rest down and fighting for crumbs. They had never heard of pandan leaves (oh these ignorant Swedes) and had never seen green muffins before. Intriguing, they thought. I didn't manage to take any pictures of my pandan muffins unfortunately but I hope I can make them again soon. We'll see.

But yesterday, I decided to make a traditional Swedish bun called sockerkringlor which I think basically means sugar weaves or something like that. I love to eat sockerkringlor here cos to me they are just a baked version of a donut and if done right, are tender, soft and delicious! I had never made them before but decided to try them out when I found a simple recipe for them. I had to use my own creativity to make the weaves and twists but I think I succeeded and they looked and tasted AWESOME!!

Pretty sockerkringlor dusted in vanilla sugar mix.

Aren't they pretty?! I'm so tooting my own horn here lah. Proud mama!

Husband dear was super pleased and said they are better than the ones we buy at the bakery. Hee! The man knows how to make his woman smile. But I have to admit, they are really delicious and surprisingly easy to make, especially if you have the handy dandy Kitchen Aid!

Leaving Trimester 2...

It's been a rollercoaster ride, the past half a year. I'm now 24 weeks along which I guess makes me almost 6 months pregnant. How time flies when one feels well.

I have to say my first trimester is something that I never wish upon anyone especially not myself. The beginning of the 2nd trimester was not very smooth either but the body is an amazing thing and things have worked out and we have come to a compromise between pain and pleasure. This means that I still get pains but they are not excruciating and pass pretty quickly therefore I am now able to enjoy what pregnancy has to offer (which honestly speaking, and many mothers may firmly disagree, isn't all that much to enjoy. I mean, swelling belly, kicks in the bladder, frequent urination and I'm now just beginning to swell in the hands and feet. UGH!!).

The house is pretty much complete in terms of baby furniture and essential except for the bath time necessities because honestly, we hardly have space for the baby car seat that dear hubby's sister, Jessica, so kindly gave to us so what more a babytub, towels and whatever else I'm supposed to have available when it comes for junior's first bath. I keep going through my head the list of things I guess I'm supposed to have and I am surprised that I have about 85% fo the things I need.

And that worries me.

How is it that I'm that well equipped so far ahead of time? I have not been very kiasu. Well, except for that week when husband had time off and we journeyed to Ikea about 3 or 4 times to look, measure and buy stuff for the house and baby. But apart from that, I have been very good at ensuring I stay AWAY from the baby stores so I don't get sucked into looking at prams again (since we've already made up our minds abt which one to get) and I'm not tempted to buy things that are pretty and nice to have but just another way of spending money frivolously. For example, do I really need a changing table when I have the bed, the sofa and the dining table to choose from? Heck, I even have the top of the washing machine if I'm too damn lazy to carry the tiny troll all the way back to my bedroom. Do I really need a baby swing that I can attach to a doorway which is oh so fun to have and see the tiny one suspended from the door post, bouncing up and down while I cook or clean or God forbid clean the toilet??

So many new, innovative and entirely unnecessary pieces of equipment are available now on the market that leaves me to wonder, have mothers all these decades had it so hard that they now need toys and machinery to make life easier?

I want a simple bouncy/rocker chair for my baby, mostly for it's first months of life when it's too little for the child to sit anywhere properly without rolling over it's own head. That way I can put it down and look at it, play with it, rock it to sleep and when the time comes feed it mushy yuck that babies supposedly like (To be honest, I think babies just eat that stuff cos they don't know any better). So anyway, back to the bouncy chair. We went to the baby store and saw a whole collection of chairs that would put Ikea's seating department to shame. There were rockers, swingers, bouncers that were manually operated, machine operated (I started looking around for the coin operated too). There were chairs that just bounced or rocked when you move it and there were chairs that looked like suspended baby walkers that are designed to simulate the rocking arms of the parent. Now, I don't know what kind of parent they designed the rocking motion from but I sure as hell hope it's nobody like my husband who still has no idea how to hold a baby,much less rock it without causing some form of mild brain haemorrhage. Not only that, the chair also gives out a whoosh whoosh sound as it rocks the child back and forth which just sounds eerie to me and certainly not something I wanna be hearing when alone at home with my baby. Why would I spend a few thousand swedish kronors on something that gives me the creeps? Unless God forbid, far into the night incessant infant crying is involved and this is my only hope against commiting infanticide, I doubt I'll be buying any form of machine operated baby rocker.

And now I'm slowly but surely entering the final trimester of this epic journey of gestation. The finishing line seems close but not close enough and yet I also feel like I don't ever want to reach it. I'm at a stage right now where I'm running the marathon and my legs are cramping, every breathe I take is an arduous painful pull from my overworked lungs, I'm sweating so much it's starting to get beyond PG rating, every step is like a step closer to collapse and I'm thinking, was it really wise of me to even enter this damn race?

I had a good, peaceful life filled with spare time, carefree moments and a contentful marriage. I didn't need to go thinking about how much better my life would be if I entered the marathon. The run towards motherhood. So many reasons to say no and yet so many reasons to say YES! I never thought the race could be this difficult. It didn't seem so bad when I was running it through my head but then again life never seems to be quite as good or as bad as one imagined it to be until one is actually living it.

Where is the radiance? Where is that beautiful, sexy sillouhette of a pregnant stomach? Where are the encouraging, uplifting doctors and nurses I'm supposed to be encountering that will lift my spirits and make me excited about this bundle of joy?

I'm not afraid of labour and childbirth...yet. No, I've been too busy dealing with the now to even want to think about 3 months down the road. Why freak myself out even more than I already am? And you know what is the worst of it all?

That I KNOW the moment this entire ordeal is over and I'm holding my beautiful baby in my arms, all the pain and discomfort and frustrations that I have felt for the past 9 months will melt away into nothing and I will suddenly develop pregnancy amnesia.

Yup, I've realised why so many mothers seem so damn positive and happy and unrealistic when talking about their pregnancies and birthing experiences. It's because they develop this amazing mind phenomenon called pregnancy amnesia. It's almost as though the discomfort of something kicking your bladder every other hour (if you're lucky), the nausea, headaches and light headedness, breathlessness and general excruciating pains in the back, hip and leg areas didn't happen. But I guess this is a necessary evil because without it, the human race would never have survived. And I will be no exception. I will smile and laugh and poo-poo this whole experience away as an over dramatic reaction of a first time mother to be.

So even though I seem to be bitching a little too often about my own pains and pregnancy woes, I believe this is an absolutely crucial process of documentation and evidence that carrying this child was no walk in the clouds. It has been more of a run on a road made of nails with lots of blood, sweat, tears and pain. And I still have 3 more months to go...

12th Century Church

Last week, dear husband had the whole week off as part of his summer vacation which was well timed since we used the week to prepare the house for the baby that is soon to come (3.5 mths and counting!). But after a week of hard work, shopping and setting up furniture, we decided on a well deserved treat by bringing his grandparents to Stubbegården for lunch.

As mentioned before, Stubbegården is a pretty, very quaint, old Swedish style house set in the middle of old Swedish countryside that serves a nice spread of traditional cold Swedish dishes and pastries, buns and cakes.

I love the interior decoration of the place, even though it can be a little bit cramped but that was the style in those days.

Grandma Inger and me enjoying the backyard where they had outdoor serving but it was a little too chilly for us. Maybe in the summertime.

The view from the backyard. Stubbegården is situated literally in the middle of the countryside and there isn't much of other buildings for a long way off.

Across from Stubbegården, horses had come out to graze and apparently nap in the sun (you can see something that looks like a dead horse in the background. It was sleeping, I checked). some of the horses were really friendly and let me pet them!! They are SO beautiful!

After lunch, we decided to head down to a nearby church that was supposed to be really old. I had always seen the top of the church tower but did not realise until that day just how close it was to Stubbegården. It was literally a 3 minute drive down a lane that lead straight to the church.

I can't remember the name of the church but it was apparently built during the 12th century! Articles about the church are display and researchers and scientists had actually done tests on the wood of the foundation and found that the wood had been cut in the winter of 1150 or something like that. I dunno how they can determine that but it's amazing! I've never been in a building so old before!!

According to husband dear, the protruding rotunda seen here is now an almost non existent architectural feature of churches as it became out of fashion sometime in the 15th century. There is maybe only one other church in Sweden that still has that feature.

It was very quiet and serene on the church grounds with not a sign of life in sight but the church doors were open and we could go in to take a closer look. Most of the features in the church are originals and date back to between the 12th and 17th century. It was very interesting to see statues and baptism bowls that were that old and open for all to see and touch.

There were murals on the entire church ceiling although most of it had faded except for the very centre of the church building.

It's amazing just how well preserved the paintings on the ceiling in the middle of the church are. I think it's partly due to the structure and design of the ceiling that protects that part of the ceiling from most of the sunlight that shines in through the large windows.

The church also has a large organ that is placed on the upper floor overlooking the entire church hall. This organ was built in the 16th century. The upper balcony where the organ player would have to sit is very cramped and had space for only one so I guess if they had a church choir, they would have had to sing somewhere downstairs.

A baptism pool (is that what it's called? I have no idea.) dating back to the 12th or 13th century I believe. It's situated right by the altar at the front of the church hall.

Another baptism pool but this one dates back to 1690.

Some friendly faces at last!

Finally after almost a year and half of living here, I get some visitors from Singapore. Ok technically they live in London which means a substantially shorter flight but friendly faces all the same. My dearest pal Fran came with her beloved, Kelvin for a short weekend visit to the modest town of Askersund and to enjoy the fresh country air we have to offer here. What a great mini holiday for husband and I and most of all what a pleasure to have friends I can chat with without boundaries or shyness, even tho it was the first time I was meeting Kelvin.

Unfortunately, I have been greatly affected by the Swedish culture of NOT taking pictures and I have but a puny collection of memories from those few days. But luckily, Kelvin is an avid photographer and honestly a thousand times better than any of us so I trusted him to take most of the pictures and await anxiously for receive them. *wink wink*.

Nobody can fully appreciate the value of meeting and catching up with good friends who otherwise live far away until one has had to uproot oneself and move to a place that is far removed from all that is familiar, friendly and safe. Not even my 2 years of living in Phuket can be compared to the isolation, loneliness and unfamiliarity that I sometimes feel living in this tiny town in the middle of the Swedish countryside. So you can imagine my happiness at having Fran and Kel for even a few days where I could talk, act and just be who I am without worry of being misunderstood or worse still, boring.

Francine and Kelvin sashaying down the runway after getting off the flight that was 30 min late, by the way. And Västerås airport is NOT a fun place to wait since it's so tiny.

After much anticipation, Ms. Francine makes an appearance with Kelvin peeking over her shoulder.

Ms. Francine finally catches sight of us and the little girl in the picture looks more excited to see her than we do.

Sightseeing in Örebro town (the big town close to Askersund) right after the airport since it was along the way back anyway. Too bad it was a holiday and Örebro castle was closed to visitors so we only took outside pictures which are pretty enough.

Dinner that night was at the hotel since I knew we would all be tired and must say, we were NOT disappointed by the food. To be honest, I have never been disappointed by the food which is surprising seeing what a small town this is.

Spent the 2nd day of their trip in Stockholm which was fun but WAAAY to short. Nobody can truly enjoy what Stockholm has to offer in just 6 hours.

There was some sort of Christian convention happening on that day so the city was packed full with people, something I'm not so used to nowadays. But it doesn't take away how pretty and lively the city is.

Our men enjoying the sights at the palace just before the changing of guard. How different the two are. heh heh...


Day 3 was a day of relaxing sightseeing and a chance for Kelvin to indulge in his photography hobby. This was a sight M and I saw often, Francine posing and Kelvin photographing.

And while they did that, this was what we would do in the background.

We went to Stubbegården, a wonderfully quaint old style cafe set in the middle of the Swedish countryside where they served a cold dish and pastry buffet. This was where Francine showcased her eating prowess by out eating us and I think all other guests they had there that week! Haha!
After that we headed on the nearby medieval town of Vadstena to look at the castle and medieval ruins they had there. Had to walk off the food.

Typical Asians posing in front of the castle gates. Luckily it was chilly and not many people around. Paiseh leh.
Finally the day we had to say goodbye. sob sob..I was really sad to see them go since it was the best holiday I had ever had since moving to SwedenAnd this is usually what happens when the Singaporeans and lone Malaysian prepare for a photo moment...first the thought that goes into the pose.

The initial pose that usually is a miss, especialy when it's windy and people can't decide on their poses. Or in this case, you get an impatient photographer ie. me.

And STILL they can't get it together! We have a plane to catch, people!

And Mr. Kelvin always on point with his handy dandy camera, taking pictures of odds and ends.

Thanks, Kel and Fran for visiting me! It was something I truly needed. Good friens, good food and great company.