5 Years of Motherhood

On 1 July 2010, I celebrated my successful completion of five years of motherhood. The first two years were tough with the night feeding, sleepless nights, terrible-two stage, tantrum throwing and the list goes on filled with things that I do not wish to go through again. Thankfully the last three years were much more enjoyable and I can finally feel that I am getting a grip on parenting.

Matty is now a sensible and well-mannered boy (on most days, except that he enjoys provoking Elaina… which is probably a boy’s thing) and well-liked at home and at school. I don’t think I can ask for anything more from a five years old.

As usual, we had the three-cake repertoire again. The only spoiler is the rain that came untimely and messed up our plan for a zoo trip that afternoon. This is our second failed attempt for a zoo trip, the first being a weekend of a school holiday and the carpark was so full that if we were to park along the road, it would take us a good twenty minutes walk to get in.

We ended up in a supermarket for some grocery shopping. I think I was more disappointed that the kids for some reason. They didn’t fuss about it and seemed fine just to stay in and dabble with the new toys. Matty has however decided that it will be a good idea for us to try the zoo again on my birthday which is coming this Friday, even though I would have preferred to just do nothing, laze around at home by myself and catch up on my sleep. He must have sensed my disappoint that day. I don’t think I have the heart to turn down his kind thoughts provided if the weather holds up this Friday.

And yes… his photo got selected for the Playhouse Disney birthday book this year. I found out that it was on a first come first serve basis (because this year they had indicated that on the website but not last year) and mailed out the photo in early May.

Taken For a Ride

Elaina was throwing a tantrum yesterday morning after a pooping session saying that her butts were in pain and needed a plaster over it *slaps forehead*… it was just the usual stunt that she pulls with her grandparents just to con some sympathy or a plaster which she often wears like a fashion accessory.


To pacify her, Gong Gong tried to distract her by suggesting that they make a trip to the library. The kids started to enjoy going over to the library with Gong Gong every now and then to while their time away. Except that the poor Gong Gong has reservations about bringing Elaina too often, because she makes him carry her all the way home with a bag of books from the library.

The little girl took the bait and even agreed to the condition set by Gong Gong that if they go to the library, she will walk and not demand to be carried. She gladly accepted it and walked all the way there as promised.

The minute the two stepped out of the library, Elaina promptly requested that Gong Gong carry her home. Gong Gong hastily reminded her that she had promised to walk. In the end the 63- year old man lost the battle to the 3-year old Elaina when she said this “Yes, I promised to walk to go to the library. But now we are going home.”

That Was a Close One

It has been six months since Elaina had that nasty fall that caused her upper lip to split and swell like a sausage. Because of that fall, she has been going around with a discoloured and shorten tooth. At least the consoling part was that she didn’t complain about any pain… not until last weekend.

Elaina started to tell us that her tooth was in pain last Thursday evening after dinner and when probed she pointed to the discoloured tooth. The dreaded day finally arrived. Due to the long weekend that stretched from Friday to Sunday, the earliest appointment we could get her was on Monday noon.

During which she kept asking why we aren’t bringing her to the doctor. But as expected, the strong outer appearance crumbled at the dental clinic. The whole struggling, kicking, screaming, crying and attempting to stomp out of the clinic came as an entire package. After a brief view of the discoloured tooth, the dentist referred Elaina to a peodontic (basically a dentist for children) but did advice that between extraction and root canal, the latter would be preferred just to keep the spacing for the next couple of years until the permanent tooth comes in. We left the clinic with Elaina’s face drenched in tears and mucous, and some stickers in hand as pacifier.

Went back to 3 more days of waiting and each day the thoughts of putting her through a root canal and under sedative is enough to make me cringe.

Without a doubt the we had the whole works of struggling, kicking, screaming, crying and attempting to stomp out of the clinic once again at the peodontic’s clinic. It took 4 persons to hold Elaina still before the peodontic could take a close look inside her mouth. With that amount of struggling I wasn’t confident that the peodontic could even get a needle into Elaina to sedate her without breaking the needle or something.

The moment of relief came when the doctor made her first statement. She said that it wasn’t anything serious and that no intervention was needed. From the review, the gum and teeth were healthy. The discoloured tooth was still firmly planted and other than the discolouration it was fine. The pain needs to be one that can affect a person’s appetite and sleep to warrant concern and even though Elaina did point to us the discomfort she felt, she was still eating and sleeping well. Plus the fall happened months ago and it usually won’t take that long for the pain to set it. The best possible explanation was that Elaina could have bit on something hard during dinner to result in some slight discomfort. I pointed out to the doctor that it was unsettling to see the discolouration but she reassured that the discolouration could be due to broken vessel resulting from the fall and blood seeping into the tooth. Discolouration does not necessary equate to a dying tooth.

With that we were sent packing home with the possibility of returning to the peodontic six months later for a review as long as there is no immense pain in the meantime. Within a year of the accident, if the condition doesn’t deteriorate Elaina should be able to keep her tooth there until she loses her milk teeth naturally.

It was 80 bucks well spent for a peace of mind. To Elaina, I think she is equally relieved to know that the dentist is only there to count how many teeth she has. I have managed to con her to return to the dentist in December because she probably will have more than 20  teeth by then and we need the dentist to take count.

A Chip Off the Old Block

Once upon a time, that someone who came up with the saying that “your child will grow up to be just like you” must have had firsthand experience. If it wasn’t, then I think my own encounters are probably good enough to justify it and put some truth in that statement.

Elaina is starting to sound and look like a little “kaypoh”… little as in size and age but the “kaypoh-ness” in her is big enough to beat any of the adults in the family. She picks up the tone and mannerism from the female adults surrounding her. She will rest her 2 hands on her hip when trying to show her dismay even the tone she uses sounded just so familiar. She bosses everyone around like a parent talking down to a child or a superior exercising her power over the subordinates. Often, we end up having to self-reflect if we need to change ourselves in order to change her.

To make it worse, she has also picked up Singlish unknowingly and from who else other than us. I remember that Matty was using the less than perfect English at one point but it stopped after a while. Whilst I think there is nothing that bad about speaking another “language” it is hard to explain to a 3-year old why she should exercise some discretion from time to time or when to use what and who the target audience should be.

Matty is not any better except that he doesn’t mimic the tone and mannerisim but he uses our line of argument against us (talk about Karma!) not with the agenda of getting back but it still made us eat our words after that.

Couple of weeks back I told Matty that he needs to drink his milk in order to grow tall and strong and how I didn’t like milk when I was a child which resulted in me being less than the average height. Subsequent to that conversation, he will probe me every now and then on the reason why I didn’t take to the taste of milk. Because there was no logical explanation to that, I was only able to tell him that it was the taste. Wrong move… because shortly after that when I tried to make him swallow his greens, the next question that I was be met with was “Why didn’t you like your milk and why didn’t you drink your milk?” with him sounding innocent. I was dumbfounded. At that point in time, how I wish it was in me to tell him not to disobey his mother.

Making Matty eat his vegetables is equivalent to making him swallow poison, other than if it was mixed into his soup. We threaten, cajole, hid it in his rice and even explained to him the good of fibre. If we can make him take one leaf, it is as good as wining it big time. The father often go with the line of “you never know until you try it”. And yes that came back to bit him big time too when he outrightly told his son that he didn’t like apple juice (which the boy loves). Matty took what was said to him in the past about vegetables seriously and handed his dad a cup of apple juice muttering the exact same words – try it… if you don’t try it how do you know you won’t like it?

Japan

3 April 2010 marked the day we flew off for our third family holiday (if you include the cruise trip on top of the one to Australia) - this time round to Japan to catch the Cherry Blossoms. If we didn’t do it before the kids start formal school, we will need to wait for years to get to do it.

The packing was so much easier as compared to our 10-day trip to Australia. Perhaps I had been well-seasoned from the last experience and was able to put everything in the bags for the entire family in just 2 hours. We could even find time to go shopping the day before the flight when we were supposed to be home-bound and preparing the luggage. I was extremely proud of myself to fit all the clothing, toiletries and what-not gizmos into a trolley bag, a hand-carry and a backpack. It was a logistic nightmare thinking back how we ended up with a trolley-bag, 3 hand-carries and a backpack for the previous 10-day trip. The diapers we brought along took up one hand-carry, not forgetting the tin of unopened formula milk that was just as bulky.

We had a good start I must say. The kids were excited enough not to fuss even though they had to be woken up at 5 in the morning to catch the flight. The excited look on their face as they sat around waiting eagerly for the cab to bring us to the airport was unforgettable. The 7-hour flight from Singapore to Tokyo was a smooth one and it went by so quickly and painlessly. Comparatively, it was hell for Elaina when we took the flight to Adelaide. I swear that the 7-hour we had onboard felt like forever and I just kept looking at my watch.

The bad part is that half-way there, Elaina started to sneeze constantly and it turned into a cold when we got to Japan. The drastic change in temperature took a toll on her system.

The mood nosedived on the second day of the holiday. Elaina was cranky by the afternoon probably due to the late night she had after the need to take a connecting flight from Tokyo to Osaka and dinner which didn’t end until 10 at night. And like all package tour, she had an early start to the day. The dip in temperature made it worse. Thankfully, her mood worked its way back up after that dreadful second day.

The experience at Universal Studio was pretty bad. The queues were long and the whole park was crowded because it was the Sunday before school starts. There was nothing much to keep the kids entertained for the 6 hours we had there. Most of the rides had height restriction or didn’t appeal to children as young as Matty and Elaina.

Other than that, everything was fabulous. We caught the Cherry Blossom in full bloom at Osaka Castle. It was simply gorgeous with the pink and white Sakura plastered to a perfect blue sky just like a postcard.

Matty and Elaina had their first encounter with snow which was unexpected. It was supposed to be a trip to the waterfall in the midst of a mountainous area. What started out as rain became snow when we got to the top. Even though I have seen fallen snow on the ground, I have yet to see snow falling. I have to admit that I was equally as excited. The most amazing part is to be able to stand at at the top looking down only to see snow-covered trees and you hear nothing but silence. Maybe because it wasn’t part of the itinerary and came totally unexpected, I thought I enjoyed the snow more than the Cherry Blossoms.

Not forgetting the food which never fails to make us gorge ourselves silly. Perhaps everything can be considered as more expensive when in Japan but the authentic Japanese food is definitely more affordable than what we pay back home. I get indigestion after each meal because the portion is way bigger than what I can stomach but because it is so damn good that I didn’t want to let it go to waste.

The highlight for Matty and Elaina is nonetheless Disneyland. We had 7 hours there but there was still so much left undone. It was a totally different experience from Universal Studio. I was freezing to death by the time the sun had gone down but both kids didn’t seem to mind the cold and had plenty of energy to keep going. I am sure Disneyland left them deep impressions because when we got home they told me I have to bring them to Disneyland again (hmmm… that will have to wait because it ain’t cheap to fly everyone there and I need to mend my pockets first!).

Elaina

Elaina finally turned 3 on 18 March. The day when I hoped that she will step out of her terrible two stage finally came… but it didn’t quite happened the way it did for Matty. She is still a diva like she had always been before 18 March 2010. We had the usual 3-cake repertoire for Elaina – a 3kg castle cake loaded with marzipan, a Minnie Mouse cake for her school celebration and a Hello Kitty cake with compliments from her maternal grandpa. Fortunately the leftover cake for this year wasn’t as bad as the last… at least I didn’t feel that I had cakes coming out from my ears.

Unfortunately for Elaina, she was confirmed to be down with Mycoplasma few days after her birthday. Actually she has been coughing since Chinese New Year and had been toeing in between “getting better” and “getting worse”. There was a period when she will only cough in the morning and not a squeak for the rest of the day making the GP conclude it as a backflow of morning sinus (since there is a family history of people who suffer from that). The haze situation made the real condition even murkier for us to decide if the haze is making her cough or is there another reason behind it.

The whole family was in denial for a while of her getting the dreaded Mycoplasma. I suppose that is understandable knowing that getting Elaina to take the blood test will be a test of patience and the antibiotics is not going to be very agreeable to Elaina’s palate. In the end, the mummy had to play the bad guy and take her in for the blood test despite some sounds of protest from the rest of the family. A mummy has to do what a mummy has to do. I won’t want Elaina to cough for 4 months like what happened to Matty. I rather she bite the bullet, suffer for 2 weeks and get it over and done with

The road to recovery has been dramatic for Elaina. She had a bruise on her right arm from the blood test, she will kick, scream and cry when she knows that she needs to take the yucky antibiotic. She will cry for no reason and begged us to bring her to Disneyland (because we threatened her that she won’t be able to go on the holiday unless she recovers). Obviously, Elaina didn’t take the threat very well and we were sorry that she was traumatized by it.

Four more days to go for the antibiotics and I am keeping my fingers crossed that her cough will leave her alone after that.

Kicking the Habit

Despite the bloody incident, Elaina has never been deterred to stop her thumb-sucking business. Our hope that she will kick this bad habit once her teeth pushes through didn’t happen either... the moment of ecstasy is more important than any discomfort or pain she will feel from the indulgence.

As her parent, I cannot deny that I haven’t been doing enough in the past to break that bad habit totally, except to remind her that she is going to have an ugly finger or that the finger is going to drop off one day. Whilst we have been able to make Elaina stop sticking her thumb into her mouth during the daytime, it was almost impossible to keep pulling her thumb out in the middle of her sleep. She does it subconsciously in her sleep and it is hard to tell her off for that. And of course, the sucking motion has always been what lulls her to sleep. For that we have to take the entire fault for not stopping her. It was just an easy way out for everyone during bedtime.

I finally harden myself and bought an applicator for putting on Elaina's thumb nail and when sucked on will leave behind a bitter taste in the mouth. We prep her last night by telling her that the applicator will make her thumb and thumb-nail prettier (we are not lying because those years of sucking has left behind a big scarp on her left thumb) but will taste yucky if she puts the thumb her mouth.

Not surprisingly, she instinctively put her thumb in while trying to fall asleep. It was equally not surprising that she ended up crying. But the surprising part is the reason why she cried. It was not because of the after-taste but she is upset that her nail is no longer pretty now that she has licked off the application and even asked for another coating to be applied to her nail.

The Definition of Evening

The other day I was trying to explain to the kids about the difference between night and evening, and that the evening is basically the transition from daytime to nighttime.

Matty was able to grasp it quite fast and even gave a very funny definition – “evening is when the sky gets really squeezy with the moon, the stars and the sun up there”.

Enough is Enough

Barely 2 years into being part of the education system, Elaina has decided for herself recently that she had enough of school. Each day she will cry when being dropped off at school and come back declaring that she is not going back to school ever again. The initial enthusiasm burning in her seemed to have dissipated overnight, one would have thought that something bad must have happened to her thus resulting in that reaction. In fact her teachers were extremely worried of the change in her attitude and scratched their heads over what could have caused it. We were even called in by her English teacher for a discussion.

Truth be told, there is nothing abnormal in her behavior. She was just finally “showing her true colours” now that she has grown comfortable with the environment and the people around. She was just like a little walking volcano that will explore a few times a day and mostly over insignificant events. The best advice to her teachers was to totally ignore her and exclude her once she gets to the point of being ridiculous. When she realizes that nobody is feeding her the attention she is craving for, she will naturally stop.

Chances are that her teachers might have been firm towards her bad behavior causing the repulsion she had towards school. Now that she knows the teachers have been talking to us about her has made it harder for her to change her mind that school is not where she wants to be. I am still keeping my fingers crossed tightly that this is just part of the Terrible Two stage and it will blow over soon once she blows the next candle on her birthday cake just like Matty.

Life Without Diaper

23 January 2010 marks the last day when I put on the last diaper for Elaina. After throwing away dry diaper each morning for the last few weeks, we have decided to take the plunge and put Elaina in her undies even for the night as well once she finishes the last opened packet of pull-up pants. It was a milestone for the little girl and parents alike.

I used to hear about tormenting experiences of other parents when it comes to toilet-training the kids for night. The day training is one thing but the night training is worse. At least during the day, the mind is lucid and in the eventuality of an “accident”, the only washing involved is the butt, the underpants and the floor. During the night, the mind is only half-awake and the thought of a wet bed full of pee is not very entertaining. Plus I dreaded to relive those nightmarish days of waking up regularly at night to do night-feeding, except that this is night-peeing.

I have in fact prepared myself quietly that I am willing to continue to put the kids in diapers at night for a while until we run out of sizes to buy before I think of toilet training them at night. Waking up Elaina in the middle of the night was the last thing I wanted to do because she is able to sleep through till the morning and I didn’t want to break that. At least for Matty he is still likely to wake up once or twice each night which will be a good opportunity to train him.

But thank goodness, the kids have been very kind to their mother. Despite it was tough potty-training both for the day (Matty took 1 year when it is usually 3 to 4 months on an average, and Elaina throwing tantrums each time she is put on the throne), this mummy didn’t have to do anything with the night training. It just came so naturally for the both of them. As soon as they were fully trained for the day, within a week they will get out of bed each morning with a dry diaper.

The other thing that thrills me is that all these came just before we are due for our next holiday. For our last trip, we had one hand-carry luggage with nothing but diapers and even then it wasn’t enough to last through our 10-day trip. We ended up having to buy another pack for Elaina. This time we have one less load to worry about!

All About Punishment

It wasn’t too long ago when a few of my forum buddies were on the topic of their kids telling lies and how they tried to overcome that problem. I was quietly congratulating myself for not having to deal with such ugly situations because Matty had never been caught lying (ok… at that point in time it never occurred to me that he could have been lucky) and Elaina is still at the age of sprouting nonsense and telling make-believe stuff which sounded real (she calls herself “Baby Giraffe” and me “Mummy Giraffe” and gets upset if you call her a big girl) which makes it really hard to tell if there was any ill-intent on her part, let alone brand her a liar.

Of course now, I can’t quite say the same because Matty was caught lying to us twice in a row over one weekend.

First was when he lied that he was playing with the toy shopping basket and Elaina tried to siphon it off from his hands when it was really the other way round. Of course the little sister protested likewise. It was only after we threatened to ask the maid who was the only witness, and that the person caught lying will be in huge trouble did Matty decide to bite the bullet and come clean about his deed. He was punished by sitting on the sofa for 10 minutes and not allowed any toys or TV. The very next day he insisted that the maid told him to get the iphone to keep himself entertained and even suggested to his father to double-check with the maid to prove his innocence. Obviously and needless to say he ended up being punished by not being allowed anywhere near the iphone for 5 days. That was as good as banishing him to hell.

Since then, Matty hasn’t told a single lie (or maybe he is lucky that he didn't get caught?) but each time when Elaina acts up Matty’s first response would be to deny the little one the iphone for 5 weeks. Looks like the iphone is not just a family entertainer it is a good tool when it comes to instilling punishment. The thought of taking the phone away from the kids is enough to make them shudder and think twice about committing “crimes” LOL.

The House is Infested...

... with bugs!  Just went I thought that we are finally seeing the lights at the end of the tunnel with Matty all recovered and I am the only one left fighting the last battle, Elaina's nose started to drip with a cough setting in on Monday.  Shortly after that, Papa and Matty got the bug on Wednesday.  Poor Matty was off all forms of drug for only a week and now he is back to the routine of pumping medication.  I cannot even recall when was the last time I didn't need to touch or feel a bottle of cough or flu syrup.

I am feeling irritable most of these days.  The medication is making me groggy and the bugs are draining my energy fast.  Exasperated, tired and sick of this situation with the flu bug sparing nobody in this family.

Dying Young

I suspect that one of Elaina's front teeth is in the process of dying. It is starting to grey and seems to be shrinking. The possible cause could be due to the bad fall she had a few weeks back that spilt her lip. I recall Lye Cheng telling me her girl had the same problem last year after she fell down in school.

The good thing is that it will not affect her permanent tooth that will push out in the near future but in the meantime she will need to live with the ugly tooth *sobs*. Now I can only pray hard that she will not start to yell pain. When that happens I will have to haul her to the dentist for a root canal procedure. It will be too traumatic an experience for someone this young.

Weaning off Bottles

Matty starts Kindy 1 tomorrow and to him it is a big thing. Something like turning 21 or getting married sort of big. I suppose this must have been the result of his teachers preparing him and the rest in the Nursery class of the change since they won't be having the same set of teachers this year.

Being egoistic as usual, it is a great deal to be more "grown up" and he has been talking about big boys going to Kindy 1 for the past few weeks... including drinking milk from a cup. We quickly jumped on the chance to make the switch on 1 January since he was so into doing big boys stuff in Year 2010. Elaina upon seeing that decided that she wanted to join in the fun.

And so that is the story of how we weaned the kids off milk bottles. If only everything was this easy.

A Christmas Not So Merry

Christmas holidays didn't play out the way it should have been this year. Spirits were riding high and there was so much anticipation leading up to Christmas. The kids were gearing up to the day and counting down to it. But all that took a nose-dived and crashed the early hours of Christmas eve when Matty started to vomit almost non-stop due to gastric flu. Once at half-past two on his bed, the second time on our bed at three in the morning and two more times on the sofa. By then we were on our toes the minute Matty starts coughing and did manage to rush him to the toilet in time for the fifth and the sixth time he puked. He was weak from all the chucking and we had gone wobbly from all the changing and washing.

We whipped him straight to the doctor as soon as the morning broke knowing very well that chances of him getting a hospitalisation order was high. Christmas dinner, the long weekend and opening of the presents had to be shelved. I was disappointed only because I know Matty was and Elaina was pretty much ignored with everyone buzzing around and shuttling between home and hospital for the next 2 days.
By the time he was discharged on boxing day, Matty was still in denial of the situation. He had insisted that it was Christmas Day the day he got home. We chose not to argue with him because it would have been an open invitation for trouble.
Though he has now recovered and back to a normal diet, Matty has lost a fair bit of weight... now looking like a malnourished kid with a big head, bony torso and limbs, and an extremely flat butt. Hopefully it won't take him too long to pile those weight back on with his constant requests for milk, cookies and all things fattening.

Bye Bye Diaper

One week ago I was still griping about how futile our efforts had been in trying to toilet train Elaina, one week later we marveled at how well she is doing.

Since last Friday Elaina managed to put on her undies for extended period of time during the day and managed to stay dry except for a few occasions (usually after she wakes up in the morning it is tough to drag her to the loo on time before she decides to let go) when her diaper will be wet. It is a remarkable improvement to see that not only has she not protest about being put on a potty, she always get off it with some output and from time to time she will indicate that she needs the loo, all in merely 3 days. Now, I just need to master the courage to take her off diaper completely during the day time even when out.

There was a slight embarrassment though when we were out shopping over the weekend. She actually clapped and cheered for me when she heard my pee trickling down the bowl and even called me a clever girl... just like how we praise her each time she gets it right.

The day when I can finally save on my diaper spending is finally here!

Wedding of the Year

The wedding we (or rather I) were preparing and looking forward to finally happened over last weekend. The kids had fun... mainly because of the short stay over at the hotel . The room we had was even affectionately referred to as "the special room" by Matty.

Except for a few negligible hiccups here and there, including Matty failing to take his afternoon nap and puked a little (thanks goodness while he was still in his tees and shorts and not in his tux) it was a rather uneventful event in a good way.

At least I am glad that Matty survived the whole night wearing his 4-piece suit (jacket, shirt, vest and long pants and even a bow tie) without any fuss and Elaina didn't cry during the march-in with the newly-weds. Although she got distracted by the dry ice so much so that she forgot she was suppose to walk towards the stage. The entourage had to move off without her and as a result she ended up right behind. She did eventually got her act together but by the time everybody got to the destination she was still happily toddling along, throwing the petals and barely halfway along the ballroom. I am less apologetic that Elaina failed to deliver the desired result, instead I felt bad towards the couple that my girl stole the limelight from them.

Where has all the time gone to?

It is very distressing to know that the year is coming to an end but is still a long list of items to be ticked off from the to-do list. From cleaning the wardrobe, arranging get together lunch dates, catching the 2012 movie, putting up the Christmas tree, getting the Christmas presents, new pair of heels, organising board meetings, getting year-end accrual numbers to holding a farewell party for my retiring boss. What a way to close the year!

The even more distressing part is that I missed Matty's year-end concert due to my team meeting which I cannot wriggle out from and Elaina's performance got cancelled because there were too many cases of HFMD popping out at school and mostly dominated by children from the afternoon classes. Both kids must be disappointed (or so I think).even though for different reasons.

On one hand I dread the coming of December because it only meant that I have less time to work around, on the other hand Christmas will surely make the kids excited and I know that they are looking forward to it with their constant chatters of digging out the Christmas tree and what they are hoping to get as Christmas present. And while typing this I was reminded that I need to order the ham for Christmas... see my to-do is growing longer by the minute!

Where is the Rice and Where Are Your Eyes?

Yesterday for lunch I decided to skip the rice and noodles, and serve potatoes instead (I always try and cover the 3 food groups when it comes to meal-planning) because I wanted to clear the potatoes I bought 2 weeks ago.  Upon seeing the food that was served-up, the first question to me from Elaina (the little rice-tub) was "Where is the rice?".  Hmmm...

This morning Daddy has to rush to work and so I took over the chauffering job.  While making the way to Matty's school, he asked "Why he cannot see my eyes" while staring at the rear-view mirror.  I am short... so short that the rear-view mirror is above my eye level ok my boy? -.-""

The Inherited Cough

Matty has been coughing intermittently for at least 2 months and in between that he has had at least 2 to 3 visits (lost the exact count!) to the doctors' and had been taking leftover cough syrup on and off. The cough didn't sound that serious but it is very irritating that his throat just doesn't seem to clear up after so long. We have been blaming it on the bad air quality that we see (yes... "see" because it is so hazy) the last 2 months.


Finally decided that he needed a specialist to help us get to the root of the problem, and off we went to a respiratory specialist yesterday. After a Q&A session that lasted a couple of minutes on the family medical history and his own medical condition, the doctor confirmed that this is a hereditary condition. I cannot remember the term the doctor used, but Matty's sensitivity can result in sinus, bronchitis (asthma if left untreated) and eczema. So the poor boy is now on a treatment course that will take up to 3 months to help him recover and hopefully keep the next relapse as far away as possible.

Because it is genetic and no way to cure it we just need to deal with the situation as it comes along. After having to manage his eczema for 2 years now, I know that it will get better over time only because we have learnt to pick it up early enough to prevent a full blown problem. It sort of becomes a part and parcel of our lives. For now, I will take consolation that 94% of the children will grow out of it by the time they hit 16 and in the meantime pray that he falls within that percentage.