I'm Still Here!

Just wanted to leave a quick note to say, yes, I am alive and yes, I'm still here. I know I ought to be flogged for being such a terrible blogger (i.e. shamelessly and guiltlessly carrying on reading other blogs as I ignore my own) but so much has been happening, it's not funny.

1. Coming down with the flu... TWICE (ugh)
2. Wrapping up 2 projects, 1 with a children's performance at the end :)
3. Starting a new project
4. TRYING to get started on my journal articles, which are due in less than a month's time :(
   
5. Hosting my lecturer from the UK
6. House hunting (double triple MAJOR ugh!)
7. Packing up and moving house
8. Starting DN in school/childcare
   
9. Growing a baby
   

Yup yup, you read right, DN is going to get a little sister in ... da-da-da-daanggg... early September. Yikes. That's only 4+ months away, and I have to finish my dissertation by then too! Why do I make life impossible for myself, I want to know. I might as well stab myself in the foot. It's probably less painful. -___-"

On the DN front, here are some updates.

Toilet Training

He has conquered toilet training! Whoopee! It was SO quick and painless, it felt like someone was hiding behind the wings, waiting to jump out at me and say, "Gotcha! You're not getting off that easily, ha! DN, pee on mommy's leg!" But honestly, it was SO easy, I actually feel bad gloating about it. Er, okay, maybe not, ha ha!

I was so scared of potty training, I literally didn't want to start. One (brave) day, I decided to just give it a shot. And in my panicky state, I brought DN to the potty every half an hour. In 2-3 days, both of us got used to the routine and within a week, he was telling us when he wanted to pee and poo. After 2 weeks, PF and I even tried going out diaper-less, and it was FINE! I really wanted to give myself an Oscar / Golden Globe / Nobel Peace Prize / President's Scholarship. Er... but we haven't done it since. (Okay okay, take the statue back!) We've been doing lots of house-hunting, so to tell people, "Er, sorry, can my son use your toilet please? He really needs to poop." just doesn't cut it. So unless we're going to a nice(ish) mall, he still has his diaper on when we're out. (Okay, take the scholarship back too!)

Attack of the Cheese

DN had a "major" allergy attack a couple of days ago because of his parents' lack of judgement and bad junk food habit. You see, my favourite chips are tortilla chips and I just lurve the Doritos Ranch Chips. Now, when you think "ranch" you think "cowboys, horses, stirrups, chaps and yee-ha" right? You don't think "cheese" right? Yeah, so we allowed DN to have some quite a bit of ranch chips and in 5 minutes, his mouth turned all red and soon after, his eyes started turning red and puffy too. The poor guy kept rubbing his eyes and we knew it was an allergic reaction and the culprit was the chips! I quickly gave him his anti-allergy medicine. This time it took longer than usual to settle down but thankfully it did in the end and DN looked normal again. Phew. The only good thing that came out of this is, he doesn't bug us for those chips anymore!

Starting Childcare / School

Because of Bessie's impending arrival (will explain why we've nicknamed the baby such soon), PF and I decided to start DN in school. We know that when she arrives, all hell will break loose and soon, we will start looking like what the cat spat out and dragged in. We figured it would help if DN wasn't around so that we can devote all our time to Bessie and make sure we don't put diaper cream on her hair in a sleepy stupor for example. It might also help DN deal with any jealousy because he won't be around to see us fussing over the new baby. Well, we'll see if it works.

Anyway, today was DN's first day in school and it went "alright" I guess. It wasn't fantastic, but it wasn't a total disaster either. Alright. So-so. Okay. Can lah! I'm allowed to sit in / hang around for 3 days in total so I'll blog more about this later this week. Stay tuned. :)