On the weekend, hubby and I were at 1Utama for lunch and decided to pick up some groceries from Jusco Supermarket before heading home for Gavin’s nap.  Since we had only a few items, I queued up in the “10 items or less” express lane.  While I was waiting, another cashier signalled me to come over to his lane which was, to my surprise, the pregnant woman express lane.  After my last experience with the pregnant woman express lane, I never bothered to look for it again.

I wheeled my trolley over to the end of the queue at the pregnant woman express lane thinking I would still have to wait until the other customers went through.  To my surprise, the cashier called me to the front of the line (since it was evident that none of the other customers fit any of the criteria from that express lane).  He made a quick apology to the other customers and proceeded to check my items through for payment.  Of course, with my bump looking like I could deliver at any moment, none of the other customers complained.  They just made way for me.

I was so stunned by this pleasant turn of events that I forgot to take his name down.  It would have been nice to be able to commend him to the management of Jusco as I’ve always believed that such excellent service should be encouraged.

We’ve been bunking in with my in laws until we can get our own place – the process of which seems to be delayed and delayed and delayed.  So what was originally intended to be a temporary measure is fast being outgrown.  Whilst the space was more than adequate when it was just hubby and I, it has been a little bit of a squeeze with a third addition to our family unit – Gavin.  With another baby on the way and still no end in sight of us moving out, it is quite evident that something must be done to create more storage space less we kill ourselves tripping over our personal effects that those of our children.

Although I have never really been a fan of Ikea furniture – simply because I feel they are overpriced for DIY furniture of average quality – I’m afraid this is another one of those issues that is similar to the Crocs issue.  I have to hand it to Ikea – they really make things easy and their modular-style furniture is just perfect for our current situation where we have severely limited space.

Even more convenient to an eight month pregnant woman is the fact that they have their complete catalogue with prices and dimensions online.  So instead of having to traipse around their store like a headless chicken, I can look for appropriate items in the comfort of my own home.  That way, when I finally step into their shop, I can head straight for the item I require without having to wander around the shop.

I thought something like this for the landing – EXPEDIT 4×4 shelves:

With a chest of drawers like this – similar to the one we already have for Gavin but taller:

Alternatively, we could add another EXPEDIT 2×4 upright shelf.  My only gripe about the EXPEDIT shelves is that without the doors it’s exposed and exposed areas collect dust.  Unless we put in boxes…

I’m still struggling to find something appropriate to place inside the room.  I’ve been contemplating having two of these Aneboda chest of drawers, although they aren’t exactly what I had in mind.  What I really wanted was a cabinet with these dimensions and sliding doors.  The only items with sliding doors in the Ikea catalogue are wardrobes – not exactly appropriate.

Alternatively we can just place two more of those chest of drawers like the ones Gavin has inside the room…

Something like the Antonius would be great for bathroom to put our toiletries, diapers and other miscellaneous items and clear the bench space for me to bathe Gareth.

Of course, as always, what usually happens when you go browsing for stuff is that you see other things that you would really like to have.  Take this glass cabinet:

This is exactly what I had always had in mind to place my TY bears inside for display.  Never quite got around to it…  Sigh.

And something like this shelving system would be perfect for the kids room in future:

It follows the Montessori concept of making all toys easily accessible to a child.  My only gripe is that a lot of the toys are exposed for dust to settle.

Okay – focus.  There will be plenty of time for those things when our new house is complete.  For the time being, the aim is to create extra storage space in our room to accommodate Gareth.

To cut down our usage of disposables, I started searching for cloth diaper pull-ups, or cloth diaper-type training pants.  They weren’t quite as easy to find as I expected.  I didn’t want the kind of training pants I bought initially with Gavin which is more like underwear with a plastic covering.  I wanted ones that could actually soak up pee if Gavin accidentally leaks while sleeping.

I found these from Happy Heiny’s.

What I like about them is that they are essentially pull-ups/pocket diapers.  I can use the inserts I bought with my Mommy’s Touch diapers to increase absorbency.  Since the inserts can be removed, it also means it will be quick drying.  The down side is that it is made with a PUL over cover – not very breathable.  The up side is that they claim it can be worn for up to 12+ hours which is great for overnight diaper wear.

I found another set of training pants from Loveybums which are made with Windpro fleece.  They are supposed to be breathable but waterproof at the same time.  I’m not exactly sure how that works, but we’ll see.  I’m not sure if these will be quite as effective as the Happy Heiny’s for overnight wear though.

Also available on Loveybums, which caught my eye, were their new LIOs – they are basically All-in-One diapers with a wool outer covering (kind of like the WIO I bought from Twigandvine).  I was extremely tempted to get some, but since I’ve already bought so many extra diapers for Gareth, I felt this purchase might be unnecessary.  We’ll see how we go with the other diapers first…

Cross-posted on Babylicious.

The initial intention was just to try out the wool diapers that my BFF recommended.  After hearing her toddler son’s testimony that they are in fact cooler than PUL diapers, I knew I had to get them for Gareth.  However, along the way, I got distracted by these fleece diapers from PrettyPrinted.  They are also breathable (although not waterproof), but the prints were so lovely, I couldn’t resist.  Plus they had a buy five get one free special.

I bought some fitted diapers from Twigandvine to be worn under the wool diaper covers.  I was recommended to get the organic bamboo fleece.  I must say they do look comfy!

I also bought a wool cover and two wool-in-ones from Twigandvine.  I don’t have a picture of the wool-in-ones as they are the latest addition to the Twigandvine store but they sounded too good to resist for a lazy person like me who enjoys the simplicity of the AIO diaper system.

I also figured that if I was going to go green with the diapers, it made sense to do the same with my breast pads.  I remember going through boxes and boxes of breast pads when I first started nursing Gavin.  Twigandvine had some lovely breast pads that came highly recommended by my BFF so I decided to give them a whirl to see how it goes.

I love shopping online.  I think my most favourite part is receiving the parcel.  Almost feel like a kid waiting for Christmas again.

I have about 160 in my collection, including Beanie Babies and Beanie Buddies.  Introducing…

The Asian Flower Bears – Beanie Babies and Buddies

Includes babies and buddies (from back left to right, front left to right): Mugunghwa (Korea), Wattlie (Australia), Sakura II (Japan), Bungaraya (Malaysia), Vanda (Singapore), Ferny (New Zealand).

All bears have tag protectors and are in mint condition.

The message is a beautiful one.  When my son is older, I definitely want him to see this…

You can find out more about this amazing person, Nick Vujicic, on Life Without Limbs.

He’s done some other stuff too…

You can find more of his stuff on youtube -- just search Sam Tsui.

I was at a rock climbing competition and Crocs were sponsoring one of the prizes for the winners.  I remember thinking to myself, “No wonder they’re giving them away for free – who on Earth would pay for a pair of those, let alone wear them?”

As Crocs gained in popularity, I remained steadfast about my decision never ever to buy a pair.  There was no way I would be caught dead wearing a pair of such ugly shoes.

Fast forward several years later…

Yes.  They’re mine.  I just bought them.  You might also be wondering, “Hello Kitty???”  Well, it was the only pair of Crocs in a colour I found acceptable.  The other available colours were too garish even for my tastes.

What on Earth convinced me to buy a pair of shoes that I had sworn never to wear?  All the many testimonials I have been hearing about how comfortable they are.  A friend of mine said she wore a pair all the way through her pregnancy because they were so comfortable.

Being pregnant for the second time and struggling to find a decent pair of shoes that was both comfortable, not exorbitantly priced and able to accommodate my increasingly swelling feet, I relented and tried the Crocs shop.

I initially wanted to get one of their more regular style of shoes.  The problem with that plan was the same as the problem I had with other shoes – if I bought a size I could wear now, it would only be a matter of time when my feet swelled to a point where I could no longer wear them.  And if I bought the size up, they would be too loose for me to wear now.

So we came back to the original Crocs design.  Since I couldn’t find a colour I could agree with, I ended up picking up a pair of their new release – Hello Kitty Crocs.  It was the only pair of original Crocs design that came in a “normal” colour – or perhaps I was just at the wrong shop because they didn’t seem to stock a very good range of colours.

If you’re wondering – no, I’m not a fan of Hello Kitty.  Never was.  In fact, it wasn’t even my time.  Yes, I’m that old.

Since buying a pair of Crocs, I have to admit, they really are comfortable.  They’re also pretty airy which is great for our hot and humid environment.  I always struggle when I have to wear a pair of shoes without socks.

As much as I have always detested Crocs, I’m afraid I’m fast becoming a convert – gasp!

Having to wait in line on my feet while being as large as a house was did not go down well.  When I arrived at the cashier, I demanded to know why they served all those people ahead of me when they didn’t qualify to use the line.  I can understand if they allow people to use the line if there are no other people around who qualified, but I was there and I was very obviously pregnant, yet no one told me to go to the front of the line.  So I told the cashier that if they weren’t going to abide by their policies, they shouldn’t even bother having such lines.

Recently, I was at Jusco Supermarket again and guess what?  They removed the sign that designated that cashier as the “pregnant/disabled/elderly/reusable bag” lane.  It figures…

I have a private email account which I redirect to gmail and the gmail team picked up the virus in the attachment.  I realise that some attachments get picked up by the virus scanner by mistake so I wasn’t sure if it was a real message or a fake one.  In addition to the fact that I was already expecting a parcel delivery around about now, I realised it could have been legitimate.

Gmail blocked the entire message and the attachment so I didn’t know what was said.  When I checked my private account on outlook, I found the following email:

Subject: DHL Delivery problem NR SVKTD9B

From: Freddie Mcdermott [bungingyi24@relojistik.com]

Attachment: D6513f8c3.zip (24 KB)

Hello!

We failed to deliver postal package which was sent on the 19th of July in time because the addressee’s address is wrong.
Please print out the invoice copy attached and collect the package at our office.

Your DHL Delivery Services.

I was immediately suspicious for several reasons:

• the fact that gmail picked up a virus in the attachment.
• the sender’s email address which was not a DHL email address.
• the date that the postal package was sent – I only bought the product last week on eBay so there’s no way it could have been dated so far back.

I googled “DHL delivery problem virus email” and found references to this new trojan from the MX Lab blog:

“The email has a ZIP file attached that starts with the letter “D” followed by random generated characters, for ex. D1c8020fd.zip, and contains the trojan W32/Troj_Obfusc.J.gen!Eldorado (F-Prot), TrojanDownloader:Win32/Bredolab.X (Microsoft), Mal/Behav-340 (Sophos).”

Thank goodness I didn’t blindly open the attachment and thank goodness for gmail that picked up the virus in the first place.  My outlook virus scanner obviously missed it because there was no mention of the virus.  When I clicked on the attachment to open it, it just gave me the usual warning that I should only open attachments from trusted sources, was I sure I wanted to open this attachment?  Having been prompted by gmail, I deleted the message after that.

You can’t be too careful these days…