Numbers & Alphabets

@ 39 months old

~ he likes to hold the pencil this way ~

Counting
CE can count till 30 and recognise the numbers. However he's a bit confused with 20 something. If I write 25, sometimes he'll say fifteen. But when I tell him it's wrong, he knows it's twenty-five.

Spell Names
When I taught him to spell his own name, he was also interested to know the spelling of all our names. Within 3 days, he can spell his own name, jie jie's name and K-A-K-A-K. He knows mine and PaPa's name but can't remember the spelling coz it's confusing for him (got almost similar spelling).

Drawing & Colouring
He doesn't know how to write yet. He can draw a little, mainly circles - balloons, monsters (face with 2 dots as eyes and a long line as mouth) and mickey mouse (3 circles). He refuses to hold the pencil the correct way. I keep teaching him to grip it correctly but he prefers to grab it (with all 5 fingers). So his colouring end up as a big patch of colour, way out of the lines. I'm not worried or anything. I guess he's a bit slow in this aspect. I'll let him take his own sweet time. He'll eventually learn to write and colour when he enters kindy next year.

~ his messy work. The "O" is nice? That's coz I coloured it :D ~

Party Day

Thank you very much for your get well wishes. XY has recovered and is able to go party already. :-) Her fever didn't come back since my last update but we still kept her at home yesterday, just to be sure. Her kindy is having a party today, a joint celebration for children born in the month of July, August and September. And also to celebrate National Day.

~ time to party! ~

There are no lessons and they can wear party clothes. As she's one of the birthday kids, we're supposed to contribute some food. So I made muffins (what else? hahaha). This time, I tried strawberry muffins. I baked them yesterday afternoon. When I took out all the ingredients, I realised I didn't have enough corn oil. *ooops!* Checked with SIL and she only has grapeseed oil and peanut oil. I googled and found out that grapeseed oil can be used for baking. So I mixed corn oil with grapeseed oil. :p Luckily they didn't taste weird. I reduced almost half of the oil required as I didn't want to make them too oily for the kids. I used a bigger cup this round. The outcome wasn't too satisfactory. They don't look nice, all cracked up and uneven. They tasted alright but not as fluffy and dry as my previous bakes.

~ some of the nicer-looking ones ~

It was a big hit with didi but jie jie didn't even finish one. Didi kept asking for more but I didn't have extra to give him. 1kg of pre-mix flour made 24 muffins and I allocated 20 for the party. I was worried XY would come back with the container barely touched. I'm so relieved she only brought back 2. Looks like didi's in luck! hehehe

Virus Attack

Caution : Long boring post ahead. Recorded for future reference. :-)

XY has been skipping school since Monday. She's having fever, red throat and a bit of runny nose. It started on Friday afternoon (temperature was below 38ºC). After that, her temperature has been going up and down but always below 37.5ºC (which meant no fever). Then suddenly on Sunday morning, it was 38+ºC. PaPa brought her to see the paediatrician. They were there for almost 2 hours because there were so many patients. When doctor checked her temperature, it was 39ºC. He said her throat's very red and prescribed antibiotics in hope for a speedy recovery. At critical times like this, better not risk a secondary infection.

Throughout Sunday and Monday, her temperature was below 38ºC. Then on Monday night, it started to rise. Gave her paracetamol before bedtime. At 7+ the next morning (Tuesday), the thermometer showed 39.2ºC. Administered a suppository and brought her to the clinic again. Doctor said her throat has improved a little (less red). It doesn't look like dengue fever or A (H1N1). He asked us to monitor her for the next 24 hours to see if a blood test is necessary.

While having lunch, she told me she's very cold. And I knew her temperature must be rising very fast. When I gave her paracetamol, it was 38.7ºC. One hour later, it was not subsiding (39.6ºC) so I inserted the suppository. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Hope I didn't overdose her. I also sponged her with a wet towel. It took some time to coax a tired and sleepy sick child out of bed into the bathroom. But luckily she's quite cooperative, at times.

To have a peace of mind, PaPa brought her to a nearby hospital for a blood test in the evening. She was only tested for dengue fever and it's negative (phew!). The doctor prescribed Fluhalt, the anti-viral medicine coz her result indicated a viral infection.

This round, her fever is the 'fast and furious' type i.e. come back and reach very high in a short time. Paracetamol takes a long time to take effect so I've been inserting suppository as her temperature was above 39ºC. Within 24 hours since yesterday morning, she's had 4 insertions (the last one at 6am today). Hopefully that'll be the last one.

At 2:30pm (8 hours after the last suppository), her temperature started to go up. Although it was only 37.4ºC, I gave her paracetamol to prevent it from going too high. Looks like there's improvement as her fever takes a longer time to come back. Hopefully her fever has subsided for good.

Overall, she's still active and playful. She feels tired and sleepy when the fever's very high, after taking her medicines, and also when I asked her to do her homework. :-) The virus seems to be very strong as she usually recovers quite quickly when infected. We're very worried that didi may catch it. But it's really tough to separate the kids. They're like magnets. No matter how many times we remind them to stay away from each other, they'll end up playing together again. I've asked her to wear a mask at home. But she doesn't put it on all the time. Well, I know it's rather uncomfortable, so I let her be. Just have to remind (and shout at) them whenever the 2 magnets are stuck together.

~ one of her 'good girl' moments ~

Bad News, Good News

=== backdated post : the weekend of 8/8/09 ===

The Bad...
Gu Gu (hubby's sister who's working in Singapore) was here for the weekend. She met with an accident on Saturday night on her way home. She was driving my car, no passengers. The car in front suddenly braked when they were crossing the traffic lights. But she didn't brake in time. So now the car's in the hospital (workshop) undergoing surgery (repair). :D

~ the damage ~

The Good...
No one was hurt in the accident. It doesn't matter how damaged the car is, most importantly no one's hurt.

And The Joyous...
We celebrated MIL's birthday the next day (actual day 11/8). Gu Gu made arrangements to join us in KL for the occasion. So this year, the celebration included all MIL's children (2 sons, 1 daughter and 2 DILs) and 3 grandchildren. We usually only have the full headcount during Chinese New Year. This was a very memorable birthday for her, with many mixed feelings over one weekend.

We went to Mid Valley for some shopping before having an early dinner at Amarin. As always, the food was great. As we're too full for anymore dessert (ice-cream cake), we decided to have the cake-cutting ceremony at home.

Couch Potato Weekend

Hubby and I were following the Singapore series The Little Nyonya on Astro. But it's quite irritating to watch one episode per day (minus weekends). I don't really mind that as I don't want to spend the extra money on rental or CD purchase. Call me a cheapskate but why spend the money when we've already paid for the Astro subscription? But of course, with the full set of CDs, we can watch as many episodes we want, whenever we want.

Hubby, who doesn't mind spending the amount (not a lot, actually) and also because he's not very patient, came back with the full set last Friday. So we spent the weekend doing TV marathon. We watched 19 episodes in 2 days' time and we've finished the series! *phew*

As it's a couch potato weekend, we didn't bring the kids anywhere (except for dinner on Saturday). So they were confined at home, with no TV to watch and no Wii games to play from afternoon onwards. Of course they created a lot of havoc - running around the house chasing each other, playing rough, snatching toys, making A LOT of noise, etc. They got scolded countless times. But can't blame them, right? At least they kept themselves occupied while the parents are glued to the idiot box. :p

~ one of the things they did to entertain themselves ~