Not So Good News

Early this morning…

Hubby told me “Your son has rashes on his bum,” a few seconds later, “Dear! Come and see! Do they look like chicken pox to you?!” He exclaimed.

Chicken pox?! “Cannot be lah, he’s already had chicken pox!” I bellowed in reply but headed over to take a look anyway.

“See! This rash looks just like chicken pox,” hubby pointing to a small bubble like thingy.

“I don’t know lah. I think it’s just rashes. I honestly can’t tell what’s chicken pox and what’s not but he’s already had chicken pox so it can’t be. Just put some cream lah,” was my abrupt reply as I left the scene. Yup, I was grouchy. It was morning and although I had my cuppa, caffeine hadn’t kicked into my system yet.

Then just as I was cleaning up the usual breakfast aftermath, I had an epiphany. I rushed back to my son, made him sit down and checked the bottom of his feet, the palm of his hands and his tongue. Yup, yup, yup, I was right. My son has Hand Foot Mouth Disease (HFMD). It fits (Dr. House would’ve been proud). He was running a low grade fever the evening before and was complaining of a sore throat.

Since bringing Hubby-jr to the doc’s and confirming the diagnosis, Hubby has whisked Little Missy to his mom’s to minimise contact. I’ll only see her nights. Sniff.

As for me, I’ll be under house arrest together with my son for the next 7 days, after which (fingers crossed that no one else catches it) I’ll be heading back to my parents’ in Malaysia for a week. So dear all, I’ll be taking a short break (about 2 weeks) during this time.

Till then… I hope things are and will be on a healthier front for you.

Babies, again.

No, no, no! Before you jump to any conclusions, no, I am NOT having another baby. I am, however, posting about babies. Again. Sorry (why am I apologizing?! I’ve no idea!) It is still one of Hubby-jr’s obsession. As such the topic has is brought up again and again. And again. And that folks, is why I’m writing another post on babies.

I’d like to think that this will be the last of it but I seriously doubt it. Hubby-jr curiosity about babies has not waned a single bit. On the contrary it seems to be growing. I showed him a photo album of his baby photos and he drove me bonkers with his endless questions!

One fine weekend hubby came in the line of fire questions instead. I must say hubby handled it wonderfully. He sought help.  (No, not from me, he’s smart enough to avoid a life threatening situation.) He went to the internet!

And he found some lovely gems. Really cute, kids friendly very short videos on babies, courtesy of HowStuffWorks. Click on the link below to check them out. To find the videos for a very young audience, you’ll have to scroll down the page until you see cartoony illustrations of babies.

http://health.howstuffworks.com/adam-roundup.htm

If that’s too big a challenge for you, here’s a list of links to each of the kids friendly videos.

• Where do babies come from?
• How does the baby eat and breathe in the uterus?
• Will the baby be a girl or a boy?
• How does the baby come out?

Not only did the videos save me from bonkersville, I found them very entertaining too. Thank you so much hubby!

Siblinghood

There’s brotherhood and sisterhood but what about a brother-sister relationship? What term should we use? I couldn’t think of one and so I’m just calling it siblinghood here.

One of my greatest joys these days is watching the relationship between my two children grow. Yes, yes, they fight, quarrel and compete (all of which drives me nuts). But now that Hubby-jr’s speech is much improved and Little Missy is getting chattier by the second, they have rather interesting conversations too (besides the negotiations and arguments!) And, thankfully, every now and then I catch them sharing with, watching out for, and caring for each other. For me those are simply the sweetest moments where I just feel all warm inside and smiling both on my face and in my heart.

Here’s some photos of the sweet moments…

It started here when Little Missy was a newborn. He was 3 years old and she 3 weeks.

Then… remember this? I posted this in August 2007. He was 4 and she almost 1 and half.

And now we have this. My 6 year old and my 3 year old.

I am so glad and grateful it was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. And I pray it always will be.

No More Eggs?

Hubby-jr’s obsession with Baby M jogged to memory a conversation we had a few months ago.

One fateful night during their (my kiddos) nightly prayer, I asked Hubby-jr to pray that God would bless someone close to us with a baby.

Never in a million years would I have thought such a request would take an unexpected turn.

“How about you mommy? Do you want to have another baby?” asked Hubby-jr earnestly.

Holy smokes, where did that come from?! After blinking for seconds, I just had to clarify,

“You want mommy to have another baby?”

Hubby-jr nodded somewhat too eagerly for my liking, and looked at me with such hopeful eyes too. I looked to hubby hoping he’d interject right then to save me but dear ol’ daddy-o was just sitting there with ‘I-can’t-wait-to-see-what-she-says’ look on his face! Plus I was half suspecting that he hoped my son would nudge me into a certain direction.

“Would you want a di-di (little brother) or mei-mei (little sister)?”

I asked just to check if he really understood the implication of me having another baby. Hoping that he’d realise he wouldn’t want another sibling in the family.

BUT I was wrong,

“Di-di!” he replied enthusiastically.

Sigh. I had to let him down gently. So I said,

“I’m sorry darling but mommy is not going to have anymore babies.”

I We I We decided that we’d stop at two, children, having children that is. Well it was more of, I decided and hubby went along with my decision but he’d be more than happy if I decided otherwise.

I thought that would end the discussion but no. Hubby-jr then asked,

“Mommy, is it because you have no more eggs inside of you?”

What?! My dear son stumped me for the second time that night. Eggs in me? How did he know? Was it from our previous conversations? I could only remember this episode. Anyway, I said,

“No, I still have eggs but I’m not going to have another baby. The egg will only become a seed or baby when…, when…”

“Mommy and I decided we’re not having anymore babies. So we are just not going to have another baby, ok? But we are very blessed to have you and mei-mei and we love you both very much. Now can you please say pray?” Hubby finally saved me. Phew! That was close. Way too close.

But just so you know, I’ve since revisited the baby making thingy with my son. I just read him the book “Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts”, again and realised that was where he learnt about eggs. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

When a man and a woman love each other (I added, “they get married”) and decide that they want to have a baby, a man’s sperm joins with a woman’s egg. From the egg and sperm, a baby will grow.

And that is that. And somehow that was (is?) enough to satisfy Hubby-jr’s curiousity (actually he was more curious about the other stuff in the book). AND (last but not least) he has NOT asked me for another baby since. PHEW!

My Son’s New Love

This is hubby-jr’s new love, a little baby boy, his cousin. I shall call him Baby M.

Baby M is almost 3 months old (I think) and Hubby-jr ADORES him! The very moment Baby M appears in church on Sundays, he’d zoom away from us to sit with him. He’d stroke his head, smell him and give him lots of kisses. It’s very, very amusing to watch.

And poor whoever is babysitting Baby M that Sunday as Hubby-jr will bombard her with loads of questions. “Can Baby M walk?”, “Does Baby M like me?”, “Can Baby M sit up?”, “Can he talk?” and tons of other questions. He’d also help feed the baby by holding the milk bottle. He was so thrilled when Baby M grasped his finger with his tiny hands and he simply loves to carry and hug the baby.

This whole new love thingy caught hubby and I by surprise. This is NOT the first baby he has seen. There has been a few new babies at our church this year alone. And he has never liked any soft toys, never laid a hand on one or a doll and is just totally very “boy”. He’s also not very “nurturing” with his sister… but somehow he just took to Baby M.

“I love Baby M, mommy.” He’s told me many times.

Here’s another couple of pictures of him and Baby M. Note the delight on my son’s face.

Train First Child Well

Little Missy drank her morning and night milk from a cup for the first time last Saturday. At her request mind you. She was thrilled when I bought the cup of her choice the day before. “Now you can drink your milk from a cup, just like kor-kor (big brother),” I psyched told her.

Nice Minnie Mouse cup, isn’t it? My kids are huge Mickey Mouse (the new version of the show) fans. Ok, well technically I didn’t buy the cup as it was a freebie banded to two tubes of Darlie toothpaste BUT I did buy the toothpaste just so she could have her cup. And of course we had to buy another one (of different design) for Hubby-jr…

Anyhoo, with my no.2 most if not all transitions have been a breeze. Little Missy started feeding herself at 2+ (Hubby-jr at 4+). She moved from sleeping in her playpen to a bed not only fuss free but with much excitement (Hubby-jr took some coaxing and a few days) and now ditching a sort of milk bottle to a cup (it took a lot of effort to get Hubby-jr off the bottle!)

Little Missy also goes to pee in the toilet on her own and washes her own hands. In fact most of the time she’d get upset if I try to help. She wants to be independent, to do things like “big kids”, just like kor-kor.

Yes I do think in part it is a result of her personality (read bossy and strong willed). But modeling Hubby-jr’s actions/habits is also a large contributing factor. And from chatting with a lot of fellow moms, wanting to do what the older sibling does is not unique to Little Missy. It is the norm.

A long time ago, someone did say these words to me of which I am discovering to be true.

“Train your no.1 well and it will be easier with the no.2″

I am not saying no.2 will naturally be an easier child to handle. Oh NOoooo! In so many ways Little Missy is a much bigger challenge (again, read bossy, strong willed but that’s a whole other story!). Each child is so different.

BUT

All my effort in training Hubby-jr (whatever I could) is paying off. In some areas as I mentioned above I do not have to train Little Missy, she just models after her brother. For that I am extremely grateful. Parenting is tough enough as it is and anything, ANYTHING that eases the process, however minutely, helps.

Swinging Around

While Little Missy chose to cycle at the park this was Hubby-jr’s preferred “vehicle”.

Yes, it’s a swing car. He had to manouver this to and from a park about 10-15 mins walk from our house. And at the park he “drove” around for about 30mins or more! By driving I mean alternating between swinging his arms left and right and pushing with both his feet. The park is a little hilly (slope-y?), so he had have some lovely cruises zooms down a long slope.

These days he has reverted to… nope not his skate scooter, nope not his bicycle… but another swing car! His old blue one. It doesn’t matter to him that most of his friends are cycling around. For now he’d rather just swing or push about whenever he is outdoors.

P/S: This yellow swing car was someone else’s castaway we found and picked up at the foot of our block. In fact we picked up two, this and a red one.

Biker In The Making?

Then.

I posted this on 30 April 2008.

Now!

Fierce huh? And yes, this time she can cycle. Actually she learnt to paddle shortly after I took the first photo.

My girl, the biker to be? One more thing for her daddy dearest to worry about.

Evergreen fun

Since June (this year) we’ve visited Pasir Ris Park twice. Before that we hadn’t for about 2 months. So when we re-visited this (one of) our favourite place(s) we were surprised to find a very fun development.

No, it is not a new play structure. On the contrary, it is an old game on one of their existing structures. An old game we never thought of till someone else did during our non-visiting months. And from what we observed seems to be the current fad there.

Sliding down this “hill” (see pic below) on a piece of cardboard is what I’m talking about.

Yup, instead of going down the steel slide the kids were having a ball of a time sliding down a piece of cardboard on the artificial grass beside it. The first time we discovered a group of children doing this, some of them were nice enough to give Hubby-jr and Little Missy pieces of cardboard to join in the fun. The second time we went prepared with our own (picked from 7-11 near our house!)

Here is honestly the best shot I have of the fun.

Hubby and I couldn’t resist joining in too! Albeit for a shorter period. Climbing up the slope repeatedly for that few seconds of thrill was quite tiring. But the kids could go on like forever… if not for the sun going down on us we wouldn’t have been able to leave the park!

So the next time you decide to go to Pasir Ris Park don’t forget to bring some cardboard pieces for everyone.

A Brief Glimpse of Our Holiday

As promised here’s some photos of our trip to Melbourne. (For some of you, you’d have seen most of these on facebook.)

Autumn in Melbourne. Taken at Skyhigh, Mt Dandenong.

The Giant's Chair at Skyhigh, Mt Dandenong.

Hubby-jr and his cousin (my cousin's son). His father is Danish.

Yup, my kids' Danish uncle.

Look! A maple leaf!

A 3-Aussie-dollar train ride at the Carribean Market that made my kids very happy. Yes, that's me adjusting my spectacles.