1 month review..

Lila's now 4.15 kgs in weight and 54.2 cms in height. I think that's a big achievement for her, she was 2.8 kgs and 50 cms when she was born.

She has also started to show glimpses of smile, and some baby noises.

She has about a stretch of 4-5 hours in the night of peaceful sleep at night, after that feeding after that she'll wake up every 2-3 hours or so for feeds.

Now.. some more photos...

XXL?

Believe me, before pregnancy, I wouldn't dream wearing size XXL, XL or even L clothes. I usually go for M, S, sometimes XS depending on the manufacturer. Before I continue, I hope I don't offend those with big size body. I have been a petite girl all my life, and trust me, being petite is no less frustrating than being big, from the petite girl's point of view.

A few days ago when I wanted to buy some tops for myself (since none of the pre-pregnancy clothes I have here fit me any more, and I wanted those with front opening, to ease breastfeeding while outings) so that I can look good when I go out. I can't be going out wearing my front opening pyjamas, right? I went to the local department store, and surely enough there were some tops I like. I asked for size M, L and XL to try on (I wasn't even sure on my size any more). In the changing room, I tried size M first. Usually with front opening tops I just undo the top two buttons to wear them. I did, and nope, didn't happen this time. I had to undo all the buttons to see if it fit me. I was stupefied to see that the left side and the right side didn't meet in the middle! Boobs too big!!!

I skipped L, and went straight to try XL. It was still too small, the left and the right side met, however the middle part kinda opened between the buttons, if you know what I mean. However apart from the area near the boobs, the top was really too big for me.

I really don't want to go for maternity clothes (I'm no more pregnant, and don't want people to think I'm pregnant, again!), but here they don't seem to have clothes for breastfeeding women! What to do, what to do?

More photos

... so you all can see how I see her...



"Why is my milk over there? That's too far!!"



I know you're all thinking "Seriously, Monica! What's with that funky hairstyle!!" I blame my mom :p She's not like that everyday. Hairstyle changes everyday :p



Look at her... she sleeps like an angel... She does, really. Wakes me up in a total of 3-4 times at nights, and goes straight back to sleep without complaining after a feed.



The piglet suit was given by Aunty Zita and Yovita. I think I have to get used to seeing pink all the time, now.



Yes those are my sexy thighs, but I guess no one cares, right? I'm getting used to being the 'background picture' nowadays - I'm needed to give a full picture, but really no one cares whether you're grey or blue :p The focus is always on the one who's usually wearing pink. Well, yellow in this one.



With the big one. Stomping big brother - proudly wearing his English jersey, which is getting smaller and smaller for him :(

Term 3 report

Today was the end of term (term 3) for Agastya so I had to go to get his report from his teacher. There are four teachers in toddler's class, namely Miss Puspa, Miss Puput, Miss Felice and Miss Rina. The teacher who's in charge of recording Agastya's development is Miss Felice. Agastya's term 2 report was kind of meaningless because he joined only the second half of term 2. Everything in term 2 was C apart from "Attendance" which was B :D Things like "Ability to hold pencil/color pencil", "Can use simple tools and material to construct", "Vocabulary building", "Able to talk about picture he sees", "Recognises & names: colors, shapes and animals", "Introduction to number 1-10", "Able to count 1-10" were "N/I", meaning "Needs Improvement". Which he did! Everything single thing I just mentioned are now "B", meaning "Good". Not even a C! All paws up and bow please!!

"Able to color within the given shape", "Able to do weaving beads and moving beads", "Able to speak simple english sentence", "Able to recite simple songs and rhymes", "Recognises likeness and differences in things", "Able to do grouping of objects up to 10", and "Able to recognise number 1-10" has improved from "N/I" to "C" meaning "Average". Well done. Although, I pointed out to Miss Felice that Agastya recognises number 1-10 easily at home. She said maybe when she tested him he wasn't really in the mood so he just arbitrary picked a number in his head. Naughty!

Everything that involves "use of muscle" such as "Muscular control", "Coordination and balance", "Able to handle play equipment", were predictably A's, meaning "Excellent".

The teacher said he's very sociable, no problem in playing and chatting with his friends, independent in eating and playing and is observant. He can now hold pencil pretty nicely and enjoys every art and craft session.

Apart from a couple of recent occasions when he behaved bad against his friends (hitting/biting), he never showed any aggressive behaviour. The teacher said he doesn't usually play with bigger boys, and befriended with everyone else and getting along very well with everyone. He even shows affection and concerns when his friend cries. The two boys he hit/bit were bigger than him and not the normal bunch he usually played with. However she said he had been behaving very good for the last two weeks so maybe he got over whatever was troubling him.

They seem to have recorded his weight and height too (I just looked in the term report book). He's 16.5 kg and 94 cm. Don't know when this was taken, but I think he's a little bit heavier than that.

There are a couple of group photos too in the scrap book they compiled. Nice :D

The head mistress also apologised about the mess at the graduation party. I didn't know that there were ONLY 10 students graduating, and most of the cost of the party went towards them (token for this token for that, graduation gowns, etc) which were unapplicable to us toddlers parents. The cost for food was half the admission price, and the show were not that enjoyable. The kids were cute and adorable like they always have been, with or without the show anyway. Especially the toddler's drama performance. I think it was a lot to ask for kids their age to do drama. Poor little kids they enjoy singing and dancing and jumping around and we all know that. The toddler show was kind of inappropriate hence not so good to watch. The admission price shouldn't have been that expensive, and could have been covered more by the graduating parents. After all they now have more than 5 million rupiahs in profit after paying all the cost. It showed how the whole thing hadn't been managed and budgeted properly. They did all the trouble to show us this "cash flow report" but now I'm more annoyed after seeing it. I was content with it before, thinking that it must have gone towards the food, venue booking, etc, but no. Most of the things were for trophies, tokens, graduation gowns, etc which were totally meaningless to me. Plus I had to pay an extra 50,000 for renting the "blue star fish suit". And the term fee has gone up 750,000. Thankfully I spoke with Ms. Hani who's in charge of Kiddieland's administration and she said I can pay half the term fee for next term because we'll be staying until early Sept. Phew.

Lila, let's go to school!

It's not a sequel to a korean drama "Sang doo, let's go to school", and I'm not about to enrol Lila to school. Not just yet.

This is what Aga said this morning. He was readying himself to go to school, and my dad was carrying Lila because she was crying. Aga said, "Diam... Lila... yuk... school!!", (Be quiet... Lila, come on, school) with his wittiest smile and both arms stretched out to her wanting to lift her! It was the cutest sight to wake up to.

So, How ? (Again)

I arrived back in Melbourne this morning and was welcomed by my aunt Visali and her family.

My cousin said, "So, how is little Lila?". Nothing off beam with that enquiry except that she pronounced it as you would pronounce "LYLA".

So, again: Lila is pronounced as you would pronounce Leela. Comprende? Yeah, I recognise it is a pro-noun and there is ambiguity in the way it can be pronounced. I hope this post clarifies.

Oh yes; Forgot to mention the following in any of my previous blogs; A heartfelt word of gratitude to my mate Tony Lambord back in the UK. He has been ever so willing to lend a hand by couriering the documents I and Monica required to make a claim for Lila's passport. Without his swift assistance, the application process would have taken 2 or 3 times longer - something I could not afford.

Thanks Tony.

Sayonara... Rasa sayange...

Don't worry, I'm not going to start writing an Indonesian post. I only did that once, in my friendster blog, because I was annoyed at an ex-friend. Ex-friend? Yes. For those who don't know, friendster is a website that allows you to keep 'adding' someone you know as a 'friend', with picture, blog facility, etc. Now this ex-friend posted a rude (read: insulting) entry in her friendster blog about my dad and when I confronted her, she 'deleted' me from her friends list. My name really disappeared from her list. Childish huh? Hence from then on I officially called myself as her ex-friend.

But we're not talking about that. 'Sayonara' and 'Rasa Sayange' are titles of some 'goodbye' Indonesian folk songs.

Agastya had a 'year-end party' hosted by Kiddieland this evening. We came a bit late, I was told to come at 4pm but with the new baby I think I can be excused for being late. I came with dad, mom looked after Lila at home with two bottles of expressed breast milk in the fridge. I was looking forward to the party just like Agastya, maybe even more than him. The dress code was 'Indonesian traditional'. I said scrap that. Even if I have one, I won't be able to fit in it because I'm now still 6 kgs over from the start of pregnancy (and proud of it).

When we arrived, all the seats had been taken, so I just stood in arbitrary place, taking videos of Agastya once in a while. Then came his performance. He was one of the 'yuyu kangkang' (= crab, i think, but he was dressed as a blue star-fish.) Blue? Don't ask me why the starfish is blue, but the attire was very shiny and he looked gorgeous wearing it, like a dangdut singer. Oh it's so tiring I'm not going to even make an attempt on giving an explanation of what 'dangdut' is. Go find yourself if you don't know. His part of the play was to drag one girl from one side of the stage to the other side, and when he got to the end side, he got a kiss from the girl. I don't know why then he went back to the origin side and get about 4-5 girls and dragged them to the end side. But didn't get a kiss this time. hah hah.

After the toddler's performance, I didn't really pay much attention to the other plays and dances. They were not of his class, and I had to feed him. He didn't stop eating until the teacher said "I'm going to take him back to the stage soon for the final songs." The boy was hungry. I did enjoy the teacher's angklong performance. The rest can be described as chaotic fun.

The kids were not that difficult to handle, it was the parents that were very annoying and un-cooperative. The teacher had to repeatedly announce politely for the parents to refrain from queuing for the food for a while because they were blocking the entrance to the backstage. Even after about 5 announcements later, the queue was still huge as if they understand neither Indonesian nor English. I wasn't one of them (obviously! *angel_grin*) since I was one of the first few to queue for the kids section and by then I was busy feeding Aga. Oh not to mention, those 'not so hungry' parents were shamelessly queuing the kids section at first and before you knew it all the food in the kids section were finished! I said 'not so hungry' because it was only around 6pm. Adults don't usually have dinner at 6pm, right? Their kids were performing, for God's sake. There was this one particular guy I noticed, he was one of the many queuing for the parents food section which was repeatedly said blocking the backstage entrance. This guy (amongst a lot of other queuing parents) pretended not to hear the announcements and kept queuing and when he came back with a plate full of food, he said to his friend "Have you had food?" Friend said "Not yet." He replied "Go and get it. Looks yummy." Hello?? Must be deaf, definitely shameless, otherwise very very antisocial.

The final songs were 'Rasa Sayange', followed by 'Sayonara'. Agastya was high and at the beginning couldn't stop stomping on the stage. I can see the toddler teachers had to sit in front of the toddler kids (they were deliberately put at the front most so they can have a clear view of the teachers.. heh heh) and give instructions on the dance routine they have to do along with the song. It must be funny from the kids' point of view to see the teachers sing and dance. Agastya sang the songs very well and danced (what a funny sight) and looked sooooooooo happy. I'm so glad I took him to the party. He was enjoying it and I enjoyed it too because he did. I mean I hardly had any food (only had some leftovers from Aga's), and although the ticket to the party was 2x a whooping Rp. 150,000 - in the end it was all worth it.

Another highlight of the party: Ms. Irene, the headmistress (I think her name is Irene and I think she's the headmistress - pardon me if I'm wrong) suddenly turned around and said to me "I saw your blog". I said "Huh?" first to myself, it was chaotic so I didn't really get what she said at first, then I replayed it in my head slowly (placenta brain still works sometimes), and when I realised what she had just said I turned to her and said "Really? How did you get to my blog?", but it was chaotic with tables overturned (really not that bad, they were merely trying to get more chairs in so they moved the tables out of the way), I didn't get her reply :(

Inferiority complex

I was at Jakarta early this week to apply for a passport for Lila with the British Consulate.

My father-in-law recommended I travel the night before (the 5th) and return the next day. Given the fact Indonesian airlines are ill-famed for their time keeping and Garuda being the preeminent among that lot, I chose to fly over night and do as per my father-in-law's suggestion.

I am not sure how many of you know about this; but it is TRUE. I have been learning Bahasa Indonesian for the past 3 months. I am quite mortified to even attempt speaking that language with any of my friends or in-laws but all the while I cannot forbear the temptation of giving it a go. So, I contemplate: What better opportunity to experiment my newly acquired skill that too with a stranger in Jakarta. If those people had a laugh at my expense, I won't be bothered much since almost certainly I will never see them in my life again. Sounds good yeah?

The "expatriates in Indonesia" forum on the web suggested I should not take any taxi except for "Blue Bird". Add to this, my father-in-law actually told me "do not take any other taxi but Blue Bird". I come out of the arrivals hall in Soekarno Hatta International airport at Jakarta and I cannot find any taxi counter with "Blue bird" written on it. Oh; a funny observation. I actually thought Soekarno Hatta was the guy's full name. It turns out, Soekarno and Hatta are two different people altogether - brothers in arms; Freedom fighters of an age long gone. I know you Indonesians are laughing at my ignorance, but do you know Soekarno's full name ? It is Ahmed Soekarno !! Yeah, did my research on it.

Coming back to the Blue bird taxi: I walked the length of the airport hall and cannot find any blue bird. A few hecklers kept following me saying "Taxi Missturrrr" ? I am a bit apprehensive; See, I have been presaged about this already and I would do well to keep myself away from these tricksters. I am giving up, NO Blue bird !! Finally, one of these guys who kept following me said "Blue bird Misssturrrr" and that rang a bell. I turned around and said "Blue bird ?". He nods and I follow him. He takes me to a counter that certainly had a blue BOARD but the name was "Garuda Biru". It hit me suddenly. Hmm, Garuda is indeed a Bird. Biru indeed means Blue. Balle Balle !! I felt quite accomplished. I can translate and make sense all by myself !!! They charge me 200,000 rupiahs for the ride from the airport to my hotel, The Mandarin Oriental; A fine hotel it is. 5 star in every way.

I came back and told Monica with great pride about "Garuda Biru" episode and extolled my intelligence. She laughed her arse off. Apparently, it is a phony!! Bluebird is a different taxi company altogether. Gaduda Biru is a competitor to confuse Indians like me. Oh Yeah; Do you know how to make a rich living in Jakarta ? Of course by driving taxis for stupid Indians like me. Who in the heck pays 200,000 rupiahs for a taxi ride?

So, I told myself: 200,000 is a lot, Yes. But it is ok. I will practice my Indonesian with this crazy taxi driver. The taxi driver, soon after starting, asked me with one word: "Hotel?". I replied with "Yes, The Mandarin Oriental please". He replied, in short, "ok". I do the Balle Balle again. Taxi driver cannot speak English well; I will electrify him with my Indonesian. So, I started blabbering a few words: I knew it was crap. The hardest part was to stop me laughing at myself. I was cracking up. Some of my words were even filled with laughter. Man I am having a ball here!! Who in the world would have thought I would be brave enough to clown myself.

The driver said, "It is ok Mr. I speak English. You can speak English with me". WHAT THE FUCK!! This guy gave me an inferiority complex. My Indonesian must have been so painful for this reluctant taxi driver that he actually chose to have a discussion with me - but in his own terms. But he was not going to speak with me in Indonesian!! Oh boy!! He shut me up for a good 5 mins all the while zooming through at 120kph.

The Mandarin Oriental: Felt like Fort Knox at first. 100 plus security guards; for a hotel? Ok, a 5 start hotel; but is it not too much? Then I realised; Indonesia had seen a few hotels bombed a few years earlier. Apparently westerners were targets. But, if you ask me Indonesians are very very passive. Close to 95% of all Indonesians you see are incapable of harming anyone. I think they are incapable of even thinking about harming anyone. Having said that, there is a minority that is bent upon destabilising their own country for whatever reasons. Extremists. But reflecting on that, which country in this world does not have extremist elements?

After an airport style security check, I am allowed inside. The girl at the reception pronounced my name correctly as if she was an Indian herself. Actually, she started a conversation with me in Indonesian; Quite happy. I fought, replied with some broken Indonesian and was happy. I gave her my British passport for Identification. She said, "Oh ! Ingriss ?" and continued in grammatically perfect English. Man, what is it with people in Indonesia? When you want them to speak with you in English, they say "Maaf, saya tidak mengerti" or some shit like that. When you desperately want them to speak with you in Indonesian, they become qualified English lecturers. What the heck!!

I prepared Lila's application overnight. Woke up early morning, showered and went to the consulate. The British consulate is on the 19th floor of the Deutsche Bank building just 20 meters away from The Mandarin Oriental. I registered her birth with the consulate at first and then applied for her passport. Payment was in rupiah at the prevailing rate against the sterling pound; 4.36 million rupiahs for the passport plus the registration. Expensive shit huh?

Lila will have her passport in approximately 1 week.

I am going back to Melbourne on Saturday. Having dinner with Zita & co on Sunday before boarding the flight at Singapore later than night.

I had a call from my Programme manager; some urgent work and I am off to Japan for 2 months or more from the middle of next week.

What Tarot card are you?

OK, this post is completely unrelated to being a mom, newborn baby or jealous sibling.

I thought I need to share this.

You are The Emperor

Stability, power, protection, realization; a great person.

The Emperor is the great authority figure of the Tarot, so it represents
fathers, father-figures and employers. There is a lot of aggression and violence
too.

The Emperor naturally follows the Empress. Like an infant, he is filled with enthuiasm, energy, aggression. He is direct, guileless and all too often irresistible. Unfortunately, like a baby he can also be a tyrant. Impatient, demanding, controlling. In the best of circumstances, he signifies the leader that everyone wants to follow, sitting on a throne that indicates the solid foundation of an Empire he created, loves and rules with intelligence and enthusiasm. But that throne can also be a trap, a responsibility that has the Emperor feeling restless, bored and discontent.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Lila's photos

Not many but here are a few photos of Lila. Probably my final post before leaving for Melbourne. There will not be any new photos here unless Monica does so in the future.

This is called the "poopen shooten" pose. You will find her in this position when she is about to shoot poo. Hmm, it is tricky to explain, but I will attempt anyway. She would wait until the nappy is fresh. You are at maximum risk during the change over. Unlike Aga who would "pee" on you when you change his nappy, Lila shoots poo on you !! There is even a special sound effect to go with it. It is quite nasty but absolutely hilarious. I and Monica laugh our arses off when she makes that sound. I know, bad parents - laughing at their own kid. But you should listen. It is absolute magic. With Aga we had to open his nappy to see if he had poo-ed. With Lila, no such questions need to be asked. She announces to you with that comical sound effect.

This is the "Oh My Gawd, Oh mi Gawd, Oh moi GAWD, too much milk and need to burp badly" pose. Do notice the open mouth. Although she has been feeding continously for the previous few hours (on and off) she is still on the prowl. Oh yeah, unlike Aga whose burps were loud and "hearty", Lila hardly makes that loud burp count. How do we know the "bubbles" came out ? Well, that is not tricky. Remember the "poopen shooten" pose ? The bubbles come out of the other side.

Like Bart Simpson who sang "Do the Bartman", this is Lila "Doing the Elvis" routine. Like Aga; remember those blogs about Aga ? Like Aga, just before she wakes up, she gives us warning. The warnings are also hilarious. Cracks Monica up more than I. Imagine, it is 2am and you had to wake up to feed someone. You are constantly tired and deprived of sleep. Not that Monica is in dire need of sleep, she must be tired; I can vouch for that. Coming back to this; at 2am Lila "Does the Elvis". You cannot be peeved at having to wake up feed her and burp her. It is amusing man !! Imagine a 10 day old baby doing the Elvis. I will record some clips and upload them. It will be ring tone soon.

Gratis. When she is awake (that is very rare these days) she is quite observant. Likes to swivel her head all around. Does not ask for people to carry her around all the time; just like to see things and see people.