Big = Clumsy

Somehow the size of my belly has a direct corelation to how klutzy I can get. It seems as though the bigger I get, the clumsier I am. These days I find myself having to tread very carefully if I want to ensure safe passage throughout the day.

It amazes me that each day presents hazards which I've never faced before, the most common of which seems to be slipping: on thin air, on water, on talcum powder, on fur, on a slippery mat. The second most common hazard plaguing my days is of course, bumping the growing protrusion that is my belly into something.

So in addition to watching where I'm going to avoid bumping my belly uneccesarily, I have to watch what and where I step on. The smallest of irregularities can tip me off balance. It's more than a little alarming to think how much more imbalanced I could get in a few more months down the road.

I suppose as soon as I lose sight of my feet, I've got to attach a sort of CCTV on my underbelly to provide me with a better view of what's going on down there under my feet. But then again, who walks looking at their feet?

Serenity

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.

- Reinhold Niebuhr

I love this prayer. In all the times in my life where I've experienced doubt, insecurity or general turmoil in my life, these words have never failed to sustain me.

Bump goes the belly

Being pregnant should alert my body to the fact that I should be more careful with my physical self. Unfortunately, the signals don't seem to carry through to my limbs. So far I've bumped my belly into machine handles (binders at the office), corners of tables, corners of walls, and even into pillars.

By the time my girl pops out, she'd be lucky not to end up a klutz like me from all that jolting around or bear some physical reminder of just how much affinity her mom has for walking into things.

At this point in time, I can only tell myself and try to constantly, consciously remind myself to take it easy, walk slower and to look where I'm going.

My cup runneth over

The gang threw me a tiny surprise party on the night before my birthday. All four of them came over to the house with a cake. Small but essential numbers, that's how I like to keep them; few but valuable friends (wait, make that three since one of them is my sis).

And later that night, Rizal slipped on the stairs and dislocated his arm. Needless to say, it was a long night which segued into a tiring day. He was kept for observation and I clawed my way home and crept into bed at 5am. He was discharged later in the day and after lunch and errands, we both crashed on the couch when we got home.

Growing older requires some introspection, especially now I'm in the stage of my life where the next big change will be THE NEXT BIG CHANGE. Given that in another few months my life will be thrown upside down by the anticipated arrival, I would like to think my journey so far has been but a taste of what is yet to come.

No one really knows what life will throw at you even when you plan well ahead. I'm no planner and even then I'm usually surprised. But I prefer to err on this side of positive. What other better way is there to take life than by its horns and failing which, to just stare it straight in the eye and say, "Come on, give me all you've got. I know I can take it."

And so saying, I realise that my boobs have run ahead of me again: my cup has runneth over. Go on, gimme all you've got. Go to a D if you want to, I can take the sagging and the engorgement. It's time to go bra shopping once again.

Hurray for the small pleasures in life.

Doing My Duty

I'm not proud to say that I've been neglecting my most important duty to the country in years past: I've not registered to vote EVER.

Well, this year I've seen and heard enough to warrant doing something about the things I don't like about the country. So I'm now a registered voter.

Or at least I hope I am, since the SPR system can't find my records in their database. But then again, I only just registered yesterday so I'll give them a few more days to update the system.

Because you can

You must be the change you want to see in the world.

- Mahatma Gandhi

This is not an easy standard to live by. I had the opportunity to do so yesterday but I blew it.

I drove by a blind man on my way home from work. He was crossing a three-lane road with the ubiquitous blind man's white stick leading the way. I was in the innermost lane and he was just starting to cross on the outermost lane. I'd just accelerated and I told myself I'm going too fast to stop. I was also talking on the handsfree with Rizal.

He was just starting on the middle lane and I could see out of the corner of my eye, the car next to me in the middle lane slowing down to let him cross. I passed the blind man by more than 6 or 7 feet. I hoped the driver behind me knew to slow down to let him cross.

I looked in my rearview mirror as I came to a stop at a traffic light ahead. He didn't slow down; he passed the blind man by 2 feet. The car behind that driver should have seen the blind man by that time and slowed down because by then, the blind man was already in the innermost lane of the road.

I almost had a heart attack. The second car behind me DID NOT slow down. I don't know if it was because he didn't see the blind man or if he just didn't care. What I saw was the car nudging the blind man's white stick and the car stopping just at the same time the blind man stopped walking. I'm He almost stumbled, but the blind man was still standing and luckily, had stopped walking. It looked as though a collision and an accident had been avoided just in the nick of time.

And that's when I started to feel guilty. I'd seen the blind man trying to cross the road and should have just stopped for him to cross even though he was two lanes away from me. By not stopping and expecting, hoping that the other drivers behind me would do the right thing, I actually perpetuated a chain of events where someone could have been hurt. I could have done the right thing, but I didn't. I could have been the change that I want to see in the world. I could have.

It got me to thinking just how much of a change I want to see in the world and how much of a part I want to play in that change. It also got me to wondering if Malaysians really are that caring a lot that the tourists and media say we are or if we're just kidding ourselves.

The Adventurer

The most intrepid of the three explorers, she goes where no other cat in the family goes: up, under, inside, over, on and out.

This is how you do the Limbo Rock

While I was posting this, he was demonstrating just how nimble he can be by plonking himself right between the monitor and my keyboard without shoving the keyboard right off the desk.

My cats, my family

"You must keep the cats away from the baby."

"You should give away your cats."

"Make sure you don't let your cats get close to the baby; they could be jealous or they could give your baby asthma."

For every well-meaning relative or friend who's given me unsolicited advice about cats and babies, my face freezes and I force a similarly well-meaning smile to appear because to open my mouth in response would be as hazardous as exposing oneself to a nuclear fallout.

I would gladly hunt and shoot down the person who first uttered the last comment which made its way around to my side of the park, if I had that much time to spare. I think pets in general would be more afraid of the wailing and noise that a newborn baby makes than develop any longlasting jealousy towards it. As with human children, it is to be expected that pets would experience a certain amount of neglect once a new addition to the family has arrived. How pets and the rest of the human household react to that new addition is how one introduces and integrates that new baby into the family.

So what if there's a little jealousy involved? Don't tell me that everyone you know is a saint and that they weren't a little jealous of their new sibling when they were first born.

I have been doing some reading and have learned that how cats react to the newcomer largely depends on what kind of cat it is. The timid, nervous cat who is liable to run away at the sign of new visitors and is really only happy with you is the most difficult to deal with, likely be jealous and to spray in the places used by new mother and baby. The devoted cat, the one who follows you around and wants to join in all you do will be the one most easily hurt but will also be the one most likely to enlarge his affections to include said new baby. The easiest cat to deal with will be the one with whom you have a somewhat impersonal relationship with, the kind who eats and sleeps, accepts petting when it suits him and generally goes his own way. If his routine remains unchanged, he should be no trouble at all.

Fortunately for us, we have cats that fall into each category. Trixie is the first, timid with strangers but oozing with affection for me. I don't imagine she would be jealous with the baby as she would be hiding behind the couch should the baby be wailing. And she has not a bone of malice in her body: she allows Pixel to manhandle her and is such a wuss she's even afraid to stand up to the wet blanket of the family, Meg.

Trixie in the early days at our rented apartment.

Pixel is the dog of the family; he is really a dog in cat's clothing. He follows us everywhere, comes when he's called and offers his belly to us or visitors whenever we walk in the front door. When he discovers that his "twin" or any of us are not around, he will meow the house down in search of the missing culprit. I think he may be more curious than jealous, and his nature being a big brown fuzzy teddy bear wrapped in dog's fur but born in a cat's body, he will take to the baby and may even want to cuddle up to it when he figures she's another member of the family.

Pixel in the days before we adopted him, lounging around the ground floor of my parents' condo unit.

Meg is the cat who's ... a cat. Sleeps all the time, appears only at mealtimes, will want to sit on my lap if I let her, is up for a game if the string is bandied about but other than that, like I said, she sleeps all the time. I don't think bringing a baby into the family will affect her in any way. Other than the fact that her spot next to me on the bed may be taken up by the new member.

Meg when she had Garfield to keep her company.

Some are still trying to convince me that putting babies and cats together is a no-no. I know of some people who've given their cats away as soon as their new baby has arrived. It saddens me that people who've taken the responsibility of caring for a cat and welcomed it in to their home could just as easily discard the cat when a baby comes along.

Time and again our pets prove that they are loyal and trusting friends, accepting us even easier than some of our human counterparts do. My cats are my babies, my companions. I treat them like my family and accord them the love and respect as such. They in turn comfort me when I'm down, share in my happiness and of course, occasionally irritate me to no end, as most normal family members do. And since I picked them off the street (all three were strays), I think of myself as being responsible for their welfare. Unless there's absolutely no way I can keep all three with me, baby notwithstanding, I wouldn't dream of putting them out on the streets again. Except maybe for Meg and even then not out on the streets but in a new home. But then again, that's a different story altogether.

Filling my own dams

I've always liked the cold. Only thing is, my body and, more specifically, my sinuses, just don't seem to think what I like has any importance. Therefore, even though I like the cold, I've always had to bundle up against air-conditioned spaces. I usually head out to cinemas and shopping centres with a sweater or sweatshirt in tow.

The tables seem to have turned in my second trimester. Nobody ever told me you could feel quite this hot at all times of the day. I take a five minute walk out in the sweltering heat and find rivers of sweat cascading down the crevice between my breasts. I stand outside of the aircond and I break out in a sweat. My armpits are constantly damp and if I move I swear I could fill reservoirs or dams with the pools of sweat my body's creating.

The act of breathing makes me sweat. My ceiling fan is set on to 3 at all times. It usually doesn't go beyond a 2. I've had to resort to the aircond more than a few nights in a row. I'm surprised my upper lip hasn't broken out in beads of sweat yet so far; the rest of my body seems to have taken on an ability to produce sweat at the drop of a hat: the crooks of my elbows, behind my knees, my pelvic joints, all those areas which bend and wherever there are folds. Did I mention that growing a couple of breast sizes bigger has caused sweat to pool under my breasts? I don't know how well-endowed women tolerate this but I find it utterly annoying! Yuck.

When I lounge around in the living room, I look like I've thrown all sense of ettiquette out the window (and where I look more than a little obscene): my limbs are all akimbo, legs wide apart and arms as far away from my body as possible. I try to keep as little skin contact with the couch as possible. And when that's no good, I sink down onto the carpet where the only contact between the floor and me is right at the tail of my butt, and my legs are bent so that only my heels touch the floor. Anyone walking in on me would think I'm preparing for early labour. The only thing missing would be the cursing and swearing.

I've taken to rolling my T-shirt and wadding it up under my boobs just so that my belly can have a fresh breath of air. And if I have my sports bra on, I've deviced a way of rolling the T-shirt under the elasticed band and up so that it bunches into that cleavage to soak up whatever sweat that develops and pools there. I've never felt more ingenious in my life.