Daddy's Birthday Cake

For hubby's birthday recently, we planned to get a small birthday cake for Elyssa's sake. But coincidentally, one of hubby's friend gave him one of the tiers of her wedding cake (she was going on her honeymoon the following day)

So we ended up with a very "pretty" cake for hubby's birthday!!

Happy girl with the pretty cake

In this photo, she just finished singing Happy Birthday to daddy. Her song had one additional line though -

Happy Birthday to you, Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to Daddy,
Happy Birthday to Everybody,
Happy Birthday to You.

Maybe that's why she loves birthdays so much - cos she thinks its everybody's birthday! Ha ha.

Waiting eagerly to eat the huge cake

Preparation for Chinese New Year

Next week is Chinese New Year already! Haven't really done much except for -

1) Chinese New Year hampers (these were made for sale - need to get some side income since I'm now unemployed!) It was pretty fun actually, to source the hamper items and to package them together with hubby. We have upgraded ourselves from beginners to pros :)
Just small scale this round but we are ready for bigger orders next time. Yay!

Some photos. Nice or not?? ;)

RM150 version

RM299 version

More of the RM150 versions

2) I just started some Chinese New Year baking. More to come!

Animal shaped cookies

(First time I used cookie cutters and I found it very, very tedious!!! The dough kept sticking to the cutter so I kept producing deformed animals which I had to re-do. After ensuring I had one container worth, I rolled up the rest of the dough into small round balls, added chocolate rice and dumped them into little paper cups. That was much faster )

Cornflake cookies and the impromptu chocolate rice cookies

Surprisingly, Elyssa was an absolute angel during my two baking sessions. She just played quietly with her own toys (Well about 90% of the time. The remaining 10%, she bugged me a little by standing on a stool next to me and kept asking me lots of questions. But ok lah.... considered good already)

Playing on her own - cooking and feeding her doll

I just LOVE to see her "taking care" of her doll! She talks like me :)

Mummy, look at my BRA !

Ha haaaa............. this girl really makes me laugh sometimes ;)

2 years, 9 months old

About her :

1. Weight - approx 13.6kg

2. As part of her nightly routine, she kisses me on the lips, wishes me "night night" then says "I love you mummy". Now she has extended this to her baby sister :) She insists on lifting up my shirt, kisses my tummy, then says "night night baby", "jie jie love you baby".
Awww..... super sweet. She also likes to ask me : what is baby doing now? baby sleeping already? baby good girl or not today? is she crying now?

3. But despite all that, there's still no guarantee that she will be a good, loving big sis! Periodically, she still bullies her two baby cousins. Just two nights ago, she purposely stepped on baby Jo Ern's hand. *sigh*.

4. Last month, I wrote that she was going through a "I don't like daddy" phase. Thankfully, the situation is much better now. All started when hubby told her one day that she was making daddy very, very sad because of that. Then, she suddenly said "Daddy, I love you daddy". And that was IT....... hubby's heart instantly m-e-l-t-e-d and from then on he made extra effort with her which has paid off!
Ha ha....she really knows her way to her daddy's heart when she wants to. I can just imagine her at 18 saying : "Daddy, I love you so much daddy, Can you buy me a car please?" ;)

5. When she's in a good mood, she can be an absolute angel. But then all hell can break loose when she's in one of her cranky moods (which drives us absolutely bonkers). It can just start off one thing that she's unhappy with (like us not allowing her to do something dangerous), then she starts crying & screaming and then becomes extremely sensitive to any little thing that happens after that. Can be a very ugly sight indeed. I've learned the hard way that there's two best ways to deal with this
1) nice way : bring her aside then slowly talk, comfort and distract her
2) harsh way : scold/ smack/ send her to corner. When she calms down, talk to her
What I've tried previously was to just ignore her (i.e. to let her cry-it-out) but realised that there's no use cos she can continue screaming and being in a cranky mood for a very loooong time.

6. When I took photos of her yesterday, she insisted that I took a video of her as well -

Reflections.... and another holiday!

I am just so glad and thankful that the down syndrome scare was just a false alarm and nothing more. The whole ordeal lasted only about about 30 hours but it felt like a long nightmare.

Surprisingly, I got to know of a lot of stories that friends or friend's friends also had the same ordeal - blood test showed high risk then amnio results came out negative. Or I guess it shouldn't be surprising from the statistics. Although my results showed that I was 4 times more at risk then a normal person in my age group, it was still 1 chance in 190. As my sis put it, just imagine there's one big lucky draw prize with 189 other people - a standard response would be "cannot get one la...". But of course, there's always the off chance of "being lucky" at the wrong time!!

Looking back, I would have been spared the ordeal if I never took the blood test in the first place. I know some gynaes don't even recommend it unless the pregnant mama is in a high risk group. So, perhaps I went through all the stress, worry, discomfort & risk from the procedure and $$ for absolutely nothing. Or maybe things happen for a reason. In a way, it was a good wake-up call (or a "kick-in-the-butt" reminder) to tell me that I have so many great things going on in my life. To really appreciate what I have. To not take things for granted...
Perhaps I was at a point in my life where I really needed to be kicked-in-the-butt !!! ;)

Oh, and we went for a short holiday because of this. Hubby suggested we needed a short getaway whatever the results, and I thought it was a great idea. Wanted to stay two nights in Clearwater Sanctuary (our 4th visit there in the past 2.5 years. It's an absolutely lovely place and definitely our sanctuary) but only the 1st night was available, so we ended up in Hotel DeLa Ferns, Cameron Highlands on the second night.

We received the wonderful news about the negative results midway through our journey up north, so we were in a fantastic happy mood. Our first meal after the results was a simple late lunch of chicken rice, meatballs and beansprouts at an unknown, quiet corner coffee shop in Gopeng but I felt like it was the BEST meal ever!

Wanted to take photo then realised........ aiyah..... I forgot my camera!!! Must have been the result of packing under duress (it was about an hour before the anticipated phone call from the hospital). At that time, I was glad for the packing distraction but as I packed, my heart was thumping and I could see that my hands were shaking.

Managed to take only a few holiday photos with hubby's blackberry -

Elyssa at the balcony of our room in Clearwater Sanctuary
(I just couldn't capture any smiley moments with the slowww blackberry camera. She looks quite round here eh?)

Eating beef noodles at the famous "thin sisters" stall near Sam Tet school, Ipoh

Elyssa with her Minnie Mouse sweater in Cameron Highlands

Phew!!!

Results negative! Am so relieved. Thanks for all the support and prayers.

On a short break now. last minute decision since hubby suggested we needed some time away whichever the outcome. Glad that its a celebration and not the opposite!

Ps : first time updating using blackberry. Aargh....keys so small

Amniocentesis

I am worried. I am scared.....

This morning, I received the shocking news about my blood test results -
Down Syndrome risk for baby : HIGH.

Went in to see gynae and she explained the results - for my age group, should be 1 in 800 (i.e. risk of 1 in 800 being positive) . Mine was 1 in 190. Heck, I was shocked!...... No family history, first child perfectly healthy, not even 35 yet...

She advised amniocentesis which is a basically a procedure to draw amniotic fluid for lab testing. Good thing is that the results would be out within 24 hours. (I had a quick read in the internet this morning which said the waiting time was 2-3 weeks. Gosh, I can't imagine having to wait that long!)

So, I had the amniocentesis done a few hours ago. A little painful, but not as bad as I expected. Feeling a bit crampy now.

But of course, the main concern is the result. Gynae will call around 1-2pm tomorrow. Don't know how I can sleep tonight :(
Don't know how I can get through the next 20 hours. And the scary part is the big "what if". I am trying my best to push it out of my mind. Keep telling myself to not think about it and only react to the outcome when its known. Trying to keep my mind blank.... trying to stay positive......trying not to break down...