How many these days serve cake on their baby's monthsary? For some, it's finding a reason to indulge on those spongy chocolatey cakes :) Thank you Riane (< "_" >)

How loud would you laugh in joy if your daughter at five months and three days, stretch wide her arms pointing  to you, and cry as if pleading to be carried, and only stops when you take her in your arms?

Our Little Princess communicates her needs since birth, but this time, she does it with both her hands and arms.

If there is a challenging camera subject that I remain to fancy on, it would be the Dubai Fountain performances at night (outside Dubai Mall and by the foot of Burj Khalifa). You know that goal of achieving the perfect lighting to show the elegance around the lake plus capturing water jets in fine lines especially when the water jets curve or spiral out in a dancing stance? Oh well, if I remain to just point and shoot, the only way for me to produce a good photo is to bet on chance :)

Dubai Fountain show at the 30-acre Burj Khalifa Lake

Dubai Fountain show at the 30-acre Burj Khalifa Lake

The world's tallest building to date : Burj Khalifa

Having a baby from pregnancy to her first months, indeed slowed us down --  e.g. long drives are put off the shelf for a while, and career moves were moderated. But while diaper-changing and baby feeding can be kind of restricting, it freed me the time to do what I missed to do for a long while in my usually busy schedule– to reflect and assess myself and see what I had been missing to do.

I returned back to work at Riane’s third month. And that’s after a year since I popped the news I was pregnant; and that’s one whole year that our family had to slow down.

Coming out from my maternity schedule, I was eager to get back to my pre-pregnancy energetic self. But lo! I got myself wrong and realized I was not ready still. Firstly, I am having episodes of forgetting words and takes a while to remember things. Oh yes, it’s not a myth that pregnancy causes temporary memory loss. FYI – I had a normal delivery, I felt all the pain, was never put to sleep, and except for the delivery inducing drugs that went my veins an hour before Riane popped out, I don’t know any drugs that could have affected my brains! I got back to sitting with different people and if it’s a group, I would end up a listener since I had a hard time participating. When they talk of movies, I hardly recall the titles and casts. And I cant even remember that we watched Brave just two weeks back.

This frustrated me much, that I started looking at how I can get back on track. One quest led to another. I researched about gaining back my memory, but I realized that even if I have it back, I still struggle to chat with people who don’t speak my tongue. I struggle because for one, I had been avoiding to learn their tongue (language, culture and interests) due to fear of failing to blend in. And then I realized there’s a bigger underlying reason why I am this person–because I am probably an HSP, or a highly sensitive person. The write up I read about being HSP flatly listed most of my traits and confirmed the feedbacks on me. I worry at upsetting people, I easily feel hurt, I prefer quiet smaller groups, I am shy, I work in great detail, I am passionate, and after all these the article says “this means they are sometimes overlooked for promotions at work”.

I am not getting any younger, and I need to live out the unwanted effects of being an HSP. Moving on, I wanted to keep the advantages of being sensitive, and  outgrow its disadvantages starting with the following acts:

1)     More to physical social meetups - not just Facebook minutes
2)     Get out often with inspiring people who talks of travels, career achievements, excellent child rearing, investments
3)     Setup the family’s vision wall and get reminded how being sensitive could help or hinder our thoughts
4)     Work on a sense of feeling beautiful – i.e. learn and buy makeups and accessories (I look so boring, you know)
5)     Lessen saying “please”. I say it unnecessarily a lot, decreasing my confidence
6)     Set out to the outskirts more often, drive again and mark off some in our to-go list
7)     Leave gossip-mongers alone, theirs is not a positive sense of belonging-ness
8)     Watch more movies with Riane, Kalel and their Dad (Riane’s 2nd moviehouse trip: Bourne Legacy)
9)     Be more positively expressive, and tell people they are lovely when they take an extra step to be one

... and there's more to the list I could add as I focus getting forward.

Enhancing my confidence and the feeling the sense of beauty : my first ever  purchase of eye shadow and  foundation.