a good one

Who among us here doggedly followed the US presidential election?... yeah, me neither.. until yesterday, when I sat through the voting results cause I was eager to know the outcome.. and when it was announced that Obama's the man, there was a kinda warm feeling that surged through my body. Good job, Americans!

oookay, I'm gonna just recapitulate on what we did the past few days.

So Naila had her first zoo trip last weekend and thanks to hubby's zoo pass, we got in gratos. It was almost a no go when the weather decided to go all fickly on us. We've been jinxed by the weather lately cause each time we planned for an outdoor outing, the sky would turn all grey and stormy. But I'm glad we went ahead with the zoo trip, as the second part of the day saw the sunny side up.



This week started with some serious laughter in the form of Russell Peters. This Canindian is one gutsy guy, dishing out anecdotal jokes about races, stereotypes and the likes that are crack-ass worthy. He's excellent at doing improvisational comic and if you don't wanna be the unwilling star under his spotlight, avoid the front seats. I can't recall the last time I had bouts of bend-over laughs like that. That was good.. kinda 'painful', but good. Well it was the first time we went to a stand-up show and it sure won't be our last.

re-entrance

What telah happened here?? My blog has become a dead space.... writer's block? busy-ness? laziness? Lets say it's a combination of all that. Eversince we're back here, I'm pretty much tuned out from the wired world. Blog, mailboxes, networking sites, have been at the standstill for the longest time. Am I running high and dry on this front? I sure hope not. Let me try to get back on the wired track. I do apologize to those of you who diligently check out my blog, hoping to see some updates, only to exit back out because there're none. This blog has become an unreliable source of information, I know.

I don't even know what to blog about now. I've been out of it for so long that it needs some getting used to again.

Well, A LOT has happened since my last entry and I don't feel like running over old news, so I'm just gonna write about the recent event..

Our first Eid as a family was really special and Naila's really cute in her baju. We're happy that our girl gets to celebrate her first Eid in its full glory. We're gonna see to it that her Christmas here will be as joyous. We wanna make sure that she gets her roots deep in both worlds.

Our girl is now 10 months and a week old and boy, is she growing up fast. She took her first few independent steps barely into her tenth month. I reckon she'll be running, jumping, legs splitting, before reaching her first year... okay, a bit far-fetched there. It just seems that our baby has turned into a bigger baby in a blink of an eye. Grandis pas trop vite, mon bébé.

So we've wrapped up our Raya visits over the weekend and we've had great times with everybody. It's good to be back. Indeed.

Selamat Hari Raya!

yes, I'm this excited when I get them little packets

did we secretly have a boy? hmm...

and so we begin

I'm baaaaack! And you thought I've ungraciously retired from the blogosphere. Well not yet, not now.

SO it has been exactly a month, a week and four days since our return. The three of us are doing fine, despite having to face the initial onset of what seems like a heavy blanket of humidness the moment we stepped out of the airport. Don't get me wrong.. we're more than glad to be in the sunny tropics and away from the cold. But the humidity really gets to us. The constant feeling of sweat and stickiness enveloping the body is really uncomfortable. If I wasn't a fan of fans or air-con before, well I am now.

Ok enough whining. But hey, I'm a Singaporean after all. Wait a minute.. the French likes to complain too, otherwise they wouldn't be so infamously known as a strike-loving nation.

So are we missing France? - largely no but I do miss certain things for sure, namely, the medical convenience I've been getting while over there. But the slight fear I had before we move, concerning finding my footing here with the medical care was unfounded. Obviously, things don't work the same way here but the switch from French way to Sing way went smoothly even if I have to put in a bit more effort on my part. But the big OUCH comes in the form of dollars. If we didn't have to draw out a single centime for my medical expenses back in France, it's cash withdrawal in chunks here. Like I said, things don't work the same way. Well you can't blame us for harping on and on about that (not so much now) but the human nature is bound to react when one's habit (in our case, habit of having our med expenses taken care of by the French system) has been taken away. C'est comme ca la vie.. you win some, you lose some.

I do miss our apartment.. umm well maybe not the apartment per se but having a place to call our own. Our last day in our apartment was busy spent unloading our stuff to the truck and clearing our things but everything was done in a jiff, thanks to the PIL and BIL. It was a poignant moment for me when the time came for us to leave. I was the last person to step out of the apartment and gave one last parting glance before closing the door. I was feeling feeling sad like that.

Well the plan to have our own abode here can take a backseat for now.. we need to find jobs first and have sufficient savings. We are truly grateful to my parents for letting us stay with them for the time being and helping to look after our little girl.

Speaking of the little girl, she has grown into a 'ball' of cuteness and geramness. She is a really happy and active little darling, always smiling and getting excited at the slightest things :)

So what have we been doing since we arrived? We've been moving around the island for job interviews (for hubby), getting acquainted with the medical people here and formalizing the papers for hubby's PR... we've been pretty busy, I'd say. Well hubby's still furiously trying to find a job. He had quite a number of interviews but the bulk of it said he was over-qualified for the job. So, still trying..

On the gastronomical front, I had my Singapore-food deprived tastebuds fully gratified since day one. Well of course there're still a whole lot of other yummy food to discover... yes, me happy here :) Happy to be back with my family, relatives and friends.. happy to be out of the cold.. happy to be back behind the wheels.. happy to have a loving husband and a beautiful daughter. Yes, me happy :D

adieu...

You welcome me with open arms.

You treat me well.

Life was sweet with you.

And I thank you.

Even though I'm leaving you,

the memories I had with you will eternally stay lock in my mind.

Goodbye France.

You've been good to me.. really good.

Till we meet again.

Fin

pondering..

In less than a week, we'll be flying off to Singapore. I can't believe the time has finally come for us to make the big move. We've been waiting for this moment to arrive and although I'm all excited and raring to go, I can't help but feeling morose at the prospect of leaving our home here. Parting the nest that we've been living in for over 4 years (more for hubby).. leaving all that is familiar and habitual.. leaving our independence and the lifestyle that we've built together. It's always sad to leave the ground you've been rooted to for a period of time. Even though I sometimes complain about how things are here, the reality is that I'm happy. But we're moving for a better future.. to a more fulfilling life.. especially so for our little girl.

We'll be starting a new chapter, creating new habits. It's not always easy to change the habits that you've picked up in life but I'm sure we'll adapt to our new lifestyle in no time. It'd be much more challenging for hubby than for me of course but together, we'll make it work.

This is for the best and we're really looking forward to our new journey, the three of us..

he got it!

Now, who applied for PR and got it the first time?.. yep, you guessed it! :D After about 3 and a half months of anticipation, we finally got the all-important response. Hubby literally jumped with joy while on the phone with mummy-in-law who broke the super duper good news to him. He tersengeh-sengeh-ed for a good half hour.. maklumlah, hati ada gumbira.

So now with the PR in hand, it would be much much less of a hassle for him to land a job there. Singapura, here we come!

naila's new do

Woke up over the weekend and saw this:

so how d'you like me new hair?

milky way no more

The time has finally come for me to say adieu to breastfeeding. The wonderful journey of ultimate oneness with my baby has sadly come to an end. It's not that I wanted to but I have to. I shall miss those special bonding moments with her.

Almost 3 months of breastfeeding. Not bad, considering that the initial plan was to do it for a month. But the need to provide for my baby was too strong, so I decided to go on. We have about a month left before our departure, so it's decided that I should make the transition to my oral med a few weeks before we leave, to have sufficiently enough time for my doctor to follow up on my blood tests. I still have to continue with my injections while taking my oral med until my blood test produce a satisfying result.

So almost a year of non-stop poking and what do I learn from that?... that every single jab and pain is worth it and I'm willing to do it all over again in case..

naila & her gigoteuse

Gigo amende??.. jee-go-terse or sleep sack in English. She sleeps in this thing at night. Keeps her warm in our 19°C bedroom. It's so soft and thick, I wish I could sleep in one.. and no, it's not available in adult size. I guess it won't be of much use once we're in sunny Sin.

Other faces of Naila..

bringing up multilingual

Being a mixed couple, we want our daughter to acquire both our native languages plus English, of course. While we don't expect her to utter all 3 languages by the time she can speak, we're very determined and will do our best to help her be multilingual.

I speak mostly English to Naila and some Malay and French at times, while her papa speaks in French and English. At the moment, she's exposed to a lot of French but she'll surely catch up on the other two once we're in Sin. I've read up a bit on this subject and as for every action, there's a reaction. This site is a good read on this matter.

After 4 years here, my understanding of the native language has markedly improved. Although I don't speak the language fluently, I can nonetheless spew sentences here and there under the circumstances. Suffice to say, I can go on my way alone here. I'm afraid I might lose touch with the language once we're out of this country. Well I just have to make the effort to keep up with it to better help Naila be mutilingual.

Lets hope she won't have language overload, turn to us one day to say this:

me back here

Finally found the time, energy and mind for some updates here. Been mostly busy, part lazy, got a couple of rude visits from the winter bug and was in no-blogging mood of late. So to my regular readers, mi scuzi.

So what's been brewing over here...

- Went to the in-laws last weekend for the last time before our move. Naila will be greatly missed by her Mamie and Papy and Tonton Nix but hey, c'est la vie, quoi. There're choices to be made (at times not easy), dreams to fulfill. You can't always have your cheese and eat it too. And thanks to the ever evolving technology, the world is a much smaller place.

- Naila has her double nationality now... she's a umm Frenchyporean?.. yeah, well she'll be that for the next 21 years at least. It's a great thing cause she has the advantage of both worlds. She's a fortunate girl indeed.

- The apartment is now about 3/4 empty. We've packed away stuff like books, clothes, bric-a-brac. It was a real chore organizing what to pack/to throw/to give away. I've never liked packing things but it has to be done and we still have a lot to do... bordel!

Wokay end of updates.

Here's a little video of Naila exploring the wonderful world of thumb-finger-fist sucking:

ticket to ride

We've recently collected Naila's French ID and passport.. so she's a recognized French citizen now. Our girl is entitled to double citizenship until she reaches 21, after which she'll have to drop one of the two citizenships. We've already applied for her Singapore citizenship and passport and are waiting for the response which we'll normally get in about a month's time.

I didn't realize that taking an ID photo of a baby can be quite a challenging task. If it takes just a few minutes for an adult to have his ID photo taken, it took us about half an hour to get Naila's done. Well it probably wasn't a good idea to feed her just before leaving home cause full tummy plus cool air plus brisk walk lulled her to sleep really quick and every attempt to rouse her failed - from gentle shaking to tickling to the blaring toot from a squeeze toy - as she was really in deep sleep. So we waited for a while, all the time tickling her everywhere until she finally opened her eyes.. good thing she didn't cry, once awaken.

One of the most brain-draining part of our move is having to settle all the paperworks. Thank goodness hubby is a great organizer and very meticulous with stuff like that. Well we have 2 more months to get everything in order before making our grand depart from the French soil.

publicité

Went to Big Bro's site and saw the video of the car accident he put up there and it reminds me of a commercial on road safety shown on French tv a while back... dunno if it's shown anywhere else. I must warn you that it's pretty brutal and shocking..

What it said:
- This day, he drove way too fast.
- And he drove just a little too fast.
- Always respect the speed limit.

strike a pose

During my hospital stay, I had a lot of people coming into my room - midwives, nurses, visitors, cleaners.. and a photographer.. yep. So this woman came in introducing herself and explaining her presence there.. that her company propose to take photographs of the baby and the mother while in the hospital, without any obligation to buy the pictures thereafter. Last week, someone came over to show us the album with all the pictures taken (there're 13 pics in total). I was thinking maybe we could browse first and then choose some but the hubby jumped in and closed the deal, buying the whole album which cost 155€.. okaayy.

Indeed, it's a smart business move - going around the maternity, spending 15 minutes in each room taking photographs of babies and mothers, knowing very well that they'll eventually squeeze some cash out of each couple especially from new parents who wouldn't resist the professionally done photographs of their cute little ones.

our weekend

Going to the in-laws now means a lot more packing to do and longer hours on the road. Naila had her first cross-country trip when we visited the in-laws over the weekend. We took 5 hours to reach there instead of the usual 4.. we had to make stops along the way to feed her and change her and to let her loosen her limbs a bit cause I can imagine it mustn't be all that comfortable slump up in the baby car seat like that at a long stretch. Well she didn't make a big fuss during the trip to and fro, so it was fine.

We visited the grandparents and Naila was properly introduced to them. Our baby got all the attention any baby could ask for during our stay there and was very much pampered by her tonton Nix (a.k.a Anthony - Stéphane's younger brother). The most frequent phrase uttered during our weekend trip was "Qu'est-ce qu'elle est belle!", meaning "She's so pretty!" - referring of course, to Naila.. NOT ME.. heh

my first outing...

...was a cool one. Yep, Naila had her first trip downtown yesterday. The weather was fine and the temperature was merciful. We didn't know that the winter sales came earlier this year and weren't expecting much crowd but the stores were thick with people. So we didn't linger for long to minimize the risk of the baby catching any microbes running wild in the air.

Well the purpose of our trip downtown was to get a girdle for meself. While I'm in no hurry to shed the excess weight I've put on, I'd like to get a grip on my tummy before gravity pulls it down till the point of no return. I do hope though that I'll drop down to my pre-pregnancy weight within a couple of months. Lets see.. total weight gain during pregnancy was 14 kg which wasn't that far off from the recommended weight gain. I've lost 8 kg after the birth which leaves me 6 extra kilos to burn... and this will be the good time to pump back some life into the stepper which has been long ignored and forgotten.. hee

So our baby turns 1 month today and she has been a constant joy to us. One month into parenthood and we're coping pretty well though there were some hiccups along the way but we've ironed that out. The hardest for me I guess, is the lack of sleep... lack of sleep plus crying baby makes Julie a tired and crabby mama. Hubby helps a lot around the apartment.. in fact, he does most of the cleaning while I deal with the laundry and cooking - I have to resume cooking now cause we couldn't eat from the box all the time. So my days are pretty occupied.. no more long hours on the computer and no more video games! (for now :)

Happy 1 month petite princesse! We love you so!

Oh, we let Naila explore her playgym for the first time today and she loves it!

welcome 2008!

2007 - a wonderful, wonderful year for us!.. especially towards the end... and you know why :)

We're really looking forward to 2008 - embarking on the journey of parenthood, making our big move to a better life, better future, better everything. Insya'Allah everything will go as planned.

Here's wishing everybody happiness and good health for the new year!