The past two days have been rough. On Wednesday Shorty went to see the Doctor for a routine check-up on Fighter. It was the first check-up that I wasn’t able to have with her because Angela wanted to go see Fighter on the ultrasound and the only day both she and the Doctor could make it was Wednesday. That happened to be the day I couldn’t make it because I had a meeting.

Just when my meeting started, I saw some messages Shorty had sent me. I immediately stepped out to call her back and learned that she had high blood pressure and the doctor suspected she had a medical condition called preeclampsia. Preeclampsia is when the mother gets high blood pressure and the only way to cure it is to deliver the baby. Fighter however is only at 28 weeks, too early to be developed. So what the Doctor has to do is try to delay the delivery as long as she can. Each week we delay it is a higher chance for Fighter to come out a healthy baby.

So anyway these are a few conversations we had during these few rough days.

#239 

Shorty is on the hospital bed with her food tray in front of her. The food has been there untouched for like 15 minutes or so. By the time Shorty decides to eat it….

Shorty: The food is cold already.

Me: Hmmm….

Shorty: You think I can ask them to heat it up again?

Me: Yeah sure.

Shorty: *presses button to call nurse*

The nurse walks in

Shorty: Hi do you think you can heat this up for me?

Nurse: Sure.

5 minutes later the nurse returns with the food.

Shorty: *starts eating*….. Fatty….

Me: Ya?

Shorty: Do you know when I said to heat up the food?

Me: Yeah?

Shorty: Well… they heated up the watermelon too.

Me: Eww… how does it taste?

Shorty: Weird. Wanna try?

Me: Not really.

#240

While in the hospital room.

Me: *farts*

Shorty: WOW… DAMN SMELLLYY!!

Me: Hehehehhe

Shorty: Fuck lahh….

Me: Do you think my fart increases or reduces your blood pressure?

Shorty: INCREASES LAH!

#241

Me: My mom scolded me today. She said we shouldn’t call our baby Fighter. See… now he really has to fight.

Shorty: Then call him what? Ah Weak ah? That’s what my family calls my brother.

#242

A few hours after Shorty was discharged from the hospital, she had to be readmitted into the hospital because of high blood pressure one night. While we were in the emergency room the nurse put a needle through the vein in her hand to allow for a drip. Shorty hates that not just because it hurts but because it’s uncomfortable. I hold Shorty hands tightly while she turns her face to look away from the needle.

Shorty: I’m sorry.

Me: What are you sorry for?

Shorty: I’m sorry I’m such a burden. *tears*

Me: You’re not a burden. Remember what I said at our wedding? Life is an adventure. We will have good adventures and bad adventures… this just happened to be a bad or difficult one.

Shorty: Yes but I just never thought things will turn so bad in just our first year.

Me: What do you mean things turn bad? What has turned bad? Nothing. We’re just having a bit of a bump on the road but that’s it. We are in this emergency room, we’ve got the best doctor in KL and I am here with you throughout. Our relationship is as strong as ever and if we get through this we’ll just get stronger. It’s not like our relationship started breaking down under this pressure.

Shorty: I guess.

Me: This isn’t the only difficult time we’re going to face. We’re going to have other tough times too. But the good news is that we’ll have lots of good times too.

Shorty: *sigh*

Me: I love you Shorty. I made a vow to be there for you always and here I am, and here I will always be.

Shorty: A few days time it’ll be our first wedding anniversary. I guess we might have to spend it in the hospital.

Me: Well we’ll decorate the hospital room up or something. We’ll think of a way to have fun 🙂

#238

Shorty:  Fatty… you were snoring last night?

Me: Was I? I thought I seldom snore.

Shorty: You were last night.

Me: I must’ve been really tired.

Shorty: Maybe. Did you feel me tickle you?

Me: You what?

Shorty: HAHAHA

Me: You tickled me?

Shorty: Yala… you were snoring so loud I couldn’t sleep. So I tickled you.

Me: And did I stop snoring?

Shorty: Not at first. So I tickled you harder.

Me: ….

Shorty: Then you stopped.

#235

So Shorty and I have finally been buying baby stuff in preparation for Fighter. Baby stuff as I now learn is very very expensive. One of the things we need for example is a breast pump that pumps out breast milk for the baby.

#236

Me: You know what… I really hope Maximus doesn’t have your genes when it comes to height.

Shorty: Why?

Me: Because if he’s short, people in school are just going to call him Minimus.

#237

Me: Ok Shorty. I finally thought about a Chinese name for Fighter already. So we can name him this instead of Maximus and it will still retain the meaning of Fighter.

Shorty: What?

Me: And it’s a proper name la… not like Siu Phak or Tiuk Phak. Like people actually use this name. In fact it’s quite a common… well not common but well known name.

Shorty: What?

Me: And it really represents the meaning of Fighter…

Shorty: ….. is it….. Mulan?

Me: Are we going to be serious here or not?

Shorty: Ok fine….. What is it?

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

…

 

Me: I’m thinking. Fighter’s name can be… Jude Tiah Ip Man.

Shorty: People are just going to call him IP (Eye-pee) man. Hey Internet Protocol Man!

#233

Shorty has been suffering from some really bad rashes lately, a symptom of her pregnancy. Just a few days ago we were out in KLCC shopping for baby stuff. Shorty went into a shop while I waited for her outside… then a few minutes later she came out.

Shorty: People in the shop staring at my face. I’m so ugly =(

Me: No you’re not! Ok no problem. We walk into next shop together. *puts arm over Shorty*. I be with you the whole time so they know this girl with rashes on her face has a Fatty with her.

We walk together into the next shop confidently.

#234

Talking to my mother and Shorty over dinner one day about what to name Fighter.

Me: We’re going to name him Jude Maximus Tiah.

Mom: Chinese name leh?

Me: I was thinking of not giving him a Chinese name. After all I almost never use my Chinese name Ewe Tiam. And it’s not really Chinese Chinese. It’s like Malaysian Chinese kind of name.

Mom: Cannot! It’s your roots. And Chinese names can have really nice meaning. Like your name Ewe Tiam means keep adding.

Shorty: Hmmm so true. Keeps adding indeed….*rubs my stomach*

Me: HEY! Fine fine….. ok I have an idea. Now the reason why Maximus is in there is because Maximus is a Gladiator and we want some part of his name to remind us of “Fighter”. But if you want to make it shorter you can take out Maximus and put the “Fighter” meaning in the Chinese name. Like Jude Tiah Siu Phak (Siu Phak means fight in Hokkien).

Shorty: HAHAHA How can! People are going to make fun of him in school.

Me: No… people will only make fun of him if you name him Tiah Tiuk Phak (Gets beaten up in Hokkien).

Shorty: HAHAHA..

Mom: Cannot. Must follow family name. So must be Tiah Kien something…

Me: Like Kien Wong. Kien Lee…

Shorty: I know I know… Kien Do! (Can do)

Me: Or just in case he has his mother’s genes we call him Kien Grow.

Shorty: Hey!

#231

Shorty and I are having dinner with my family at Nero Tecca.

One of our favorite things to order there is the cold cuts. Since Shorty got pregnant though the doctor has told her that she’s not supposed to eat any cold cuts. But last night…

Shorty: Fatty…

Me: *busy talking to Father*

Shorty: Fatty!

Me: Ya?

Shorty: You think I could have a piece of ham?

Me: Which one? The mortadella?

Shorty: Ya…

Me: Ok *picks up Mortadella to put on Shorty’s plate*

Shorty: Really?

Me: WAIT WAIT … NO YOU’RE NOT SUPPOSED TO HAVE ANY! *takes mortadella way from Shorty again*

Shorty: Dammit….

Me: Oh… this girl huh. When I’m distracted talking to my Father you try trick me into allowing you to eat this huh.

#232

Every morning when I leave for work, Shorty is still fast asleep in bed but I normally give her a little kiss on her forehead so she wakes up and mumbles a ‘bye’ to me.

This morning though I woke up and was rushing to work so I didn’t get to give her a little kiss. She called me later on in the morning but I was in a meeting so I couldn’t pick up. So she messaged me.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t updated my blog in a while, it’s because I have been on a mountain for the past few days. I’m part of this organization called Entrepreneur Organization and they put us in a group of other fellow entrepreneurs where we share experiences with one another. Past few days though I was in a golf resort somewhere in some rural mountain in Kun Ming for a retreat with them.

So I had super limited internet connection. The mountain I was on didn’t even have any data. This particular trip though Shorty and I had been missing each other loads too. So whenever I got wifi I sent her a message on Line. We of course had limited conversations in the past few days so there weren’t any usual Things Shorty & Fatty Say. Our conversations were limited to these:

#228

She sent me this message before I even boarded the plane from KL to Kun Ming.

#229

And yesterday when I was about to come back. 

#230

But she did give me some really good news while I was away.

#226

Me: Shorts! Wanna go for Nuffnang movie screening next Tuesday?

Shorty: What movie?

Me: Pacific Rim.

Shorty: What’s it about?

Me: It’s about robots fighting aliens.

Shorty: Whaaaaaattttt…. dowan lahh…. (Shorty hates action movies or most science fiction movies)

Me: Whatttt the trailer looks damn good. Maybe it’s because I over-simplified the plot for you. Ok let me explain the plot in detail to you. In the future, while we always think that aliens come from the sky, aliens actually come from the deepest parts of the ocean. Then they come up and destroy cities and kill people….

Shorty: Wow how original.

Me: But the US government has a secret weapon to fight this threat…

Shorty: Now where have I heard this before? *rubs chin*

Me: You know what… we’re watching this anyway.

#227

Shorty and I went back to Penang over the weekend.

I had to go back for my late uncle’s wake and Shorty being the wonderful wife she is decided to follow me back (I think she was still recovering from withdrawal symptoms from my Australia trip). Shorty is already about 6 and a half months pregnant and when we were checking in on our flight we saw a sign that said that pregnant women should declare themselves. It was my first time traveling with a pregnant Shorty so I thought that it was so the airline can take special care of a pregnant lady. I was wrong though. Right after we declared Shorty was pregnant the customer service officer gave us a long legal document that required us to waive our rights to sue them for anything in case anything happened to Shorty on the flight. This I later learned is really normal procedure for airlines but being naive and all…I took it badly and I kinda scolded the guy.

Later on at the airport though….

Me: Haih… Ya I think I’m in the wrong there. Totally ignorant about this in the first place and the guy at the counter was just doing his job. Haih… I feel bad.

Shorty: Yah… when we first saw him he was a bit cheerful. But after kena scolding already you can see he was pissed off also.

Me: Thanks for making me feel worse Shorty.

Shorty: HAHAHA…

Me: You think I should go back to apologize to him?

Shorty: Well… I think it would make his day again.

Me: Ahh fine…. Kempen Sopan Santun. That means not only should we call out people when they’re rude in public but since I was rude I should go back and apologize to him.

Shorty: Ok lets go.

Me: *starts walking* Ohhh man… this is going to be a long walk….

Shorty: Haha…

Me: I don’t know how I’m going to do this. Do I wait in line for him to serve other customers first or what?

Shorty: I guess so.

Me: When he sees me again he’ll probably me like “Fuk la… this China man fella again. What does he want now? Declare that HE is pregnant?”.

Shorty: Hahaha no Fatty… he was speaking Malay. More likely it’ll be “Puki mak budak ini!”. *

Me: Yeah… he’ll be like “CELAKA BUDAK CINA INI MARI LAGI…. NAK APE LAGGII????” **

Shorty: “Apa lagi Cina mahu???” ***

Me: …… HAHAHAHAHA… good one good one.

In the end I went back to apologize to him. Shorty said he looked kinda stunned… but it brought a smile back to his face. 

——————————————-

For my non-Malaysian readers here is the translation of some of the lines that were in Malay:

*(Translation: <Malay Curse word> this kid)

**(Translation: <Malay Curse Word again> this Chinese kid come again… what else does he want?)

***(Translation: What more do the Chinese want? (The headline of a major newspaper in Malaysia after elections this year when it was found more ethnic Chinese in Malaysia voted for the opposition. That headline later on trended on Twitter.)

#225

I came home and took off my jeans because I was hot. Then was sitting at my computer in our study dressed in my boxers and t-shirt.

Me: *walks to my bedroom then suddenly darts back to my study again* OI!

Shorty: What?

Me: Who’s in our room? I heard someone there.

Shorty: Jane (our maid whose name is not really Jane but lets just call her Jane here in case she doesn’t want her name to be up here).

Me: Never give me warning huh. I’m not wearing pants here.

Shorty: I didn’t know you not wearing pants.

Me: Well now you know. *goes back to computer*

Shorty: OI!

Me: What?

Shorty: *whisper-like shouting* GO PUT ON SOME PANTS LAH!

Me: I want to! But Jane is between me and my pants. What you want me to do?

Shorty: Oh… hehehe…

5 minutes later Jane leaves the room. I’m still hanging around in our study. Suddenly we hear a knock on the door. 

Me: WHO IS IT?

Jane: It’s me.

Me: *Runs to hide behind the sofa.*

Shorty: *walks to open the door* OI …. GOT PANTS OR NOT…

Me: Not yet….

Shorty: Living on the edge ah… GO PUT ON SOME PANTS LA!!!