Shows.

Being pregnant limits your activities. We have tried to see as many shows and movies as we could. 

 This was amazing. If you have never seen a Cirque show, you are completely missing out. Make sure you make every effort to see one sometime in your lifetime. I also highly recommend getting as close to the stage as possible. We splurged for 5th row tickets. I can't recommend this enough.

I had to go see this with the girls. The dancing was great, the acting not so much. But to be fair, the cast was from South Africa and they were desperately trying to maintain their American accents. Highly inappropriate for kids which there were far to many of there. 

This was our last show before baby comes. It was good, not amazing or anything surprising. Great to go out with friends afterwards though. We are definitely enjoying our nights out as much as we can. 

Will our baby be Singaporean?

We get asked that a lot from people back in the US and Canada. The answer is no. I found this article explaining this. Here are some key points from the article. (We are EP pass holders)


"You can be a tourist here or on an EP pass or be a Permanent Resident and give birth in Singapore and your child will not be classified as a Singaporean.

An oxymoron surely? You must take on the nationality of the place where you are born?

Ordinarily and in many other other countries in the world yes but not in Singapore.The irony is of course that Singapore has the lowest fertility rate in the world which is one of the main reasons that foreigners have to be imported here to fill jobs. That in turn is one of the main reasons why Singaporeans are increasingly anti-foreigner and believe that foreign workers should be second to infrastructure development to cope with population growth.

I have tried to find out why this is the case and can only conclude that the policy is designed to stop people from poorer neighbours like the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia from just hoping over the border to visit Sentosa and having a baby here at the same time and gaining all the benefits.

However this overlooks the small fact that there is virtually no welfare system here. Born here does not give you any benefits unless you really are on the poverty line.

Even then the reason why so many older Singaporeans work in fast food outlets (way past any age they would do so in the West) is because there are no freebies, no safety net beyond your child looking after you (they must do so legally but if you have no family it becomes a problem).

The UK and US could learn much in this context from Singapore. They are billions in debt while Singapore is billions in surplus mainly due to welfare bills for the two western countries. As PM Lee recently said foreigners should be welcome as long as they integrate and contribute to society."

I think it makes perfect sense for us to not be able to claim Singaporean citizenship.

hazy dayz

Just another typical day in Cairo Singapore. Wait, what? 

Any time from May to October, Indonesian farmers in Sumatra set forests on fire to clear land for farming. Yes, you read that correctly. This causes a massive haze to blow over Singapore and making it unsafe to be outside for prolonged periods of time. Here's an article about it. 

I was planning on walking over to my prenatal yoga class, but not today. More indoor time means more blogging. No one is sure how long the haze will last. 

So what's new? School is out which means we are off traveling..... Nope, not this year. First time to ever stay in the city we live in for more than a weekend. Which means we are going crazy enjoying the peace and quiet. There's plenty to do in Singapore and we are "treasuring our alone time" as everyone says to do. We've eaten out almost every day trying new restaurants and going to see lots of movies. We've done lots of baby shopping. I went to the US Embassy yesterday. I could have called them with my questions, but thought I'd just go in. Pretty straight forward with getting a passport for the baby. And there's even a changing table and nursing area in the women's bathroom. USA! USA! 

O went to Beerfest with the boys and I made some more pictures for the baby's room. We went to the Aquarium one day. I know, it's so much excitement, we can really only have one activity a day. 

Other exciting things to look forward to:

go on hospital tour

write a birth plan

fix the printer to print out the birth plan

figure out how the baby monitor works

figure out how to use breast pump

sterilize all baby things

attend baby first aid class

go see the new pandas at the zoo

get a new couch cover from Ikea

O is going to take his Singapore driver's license test

count how many onesies our baby has We have 87 onesies! 

look up ways to induce labour

Baby Shower

Just realized that I never posted this!! 

My amazing friends, Cara, Teresa and Gemma threw me the bestest baby shower ever. 

Who doesn't love a diaper cake?

These little onesies were up and everyone had to guess the baby's name....

 and how much he will weigh....

and of course, his head size! 

These balloons were everywhere- so cute! Afterwards, we gave them to some little kids at the restaurant. 

This was so cute. Everyone had to draw a picture of what they thought baby Lebourdais would look like and then write their best advice. Teresa also got pictures from my mom and O's mom of us as babies. 

 Such an awesome group of ladies! 

So many great gifts! Teresa contacted my mom who sent baby stuff from when I was a baby.  Everything from the outfit I would have been brought home in from the hospital if I was a boy to the booties my mom wore from the hospital when she was brought home from the hospital. 

Before I was pregnant, I had maybe a diet coke every other day. Since I was trying to cut back on caffeine, I stopped drinking them. I've splurged on our babymoons and had a few "real" cokes, you know the ones made from sugar cane in the glass bottles in Thailand- yum! Other than that, I haven't had any, and I can say I haven't wanted any soda at all. I'm told that it's such an "American" thing to drink soda during the day without alcohol.