Mummy's entry - My baby is 2 and still not feeling well

Today, the girl is 2 years old and sadly, she hasn't recovered from her high fever which started last Thursday. Instead of having her little party at the daycare, we spent half the day at the hospital, getting her blood test done.

First thing this morning, we allowed her to open her birthday presents under the Christmas tree, she received double presents for Christmas and we saved some for her birthday. At least she was happy for a bit.

The poor girl asked to go to Aunty Ng's (her caretaker) and I was also contemplating to go ahead with the little party which is to bring her birthday cake and party packs (which she helped us to pack over the weekend) and have all the kids sing the birthday song to her. But I was putting myself into other parents' shoes, I wouldn't want a sick kid at the daycare to spread the germs.

Thank God the blood test showed all is alright except that she has a viral infection as suspected and some slight bacteria which probably from her eye infection. He gave us antibiotics on Saturday (which we brought her in again to see her doctor) for her eye infection since the girl is not letting us go anywhere near her eye. He said that her infection can be contagious if she goes near or touches other kids which was why I held back on going ahead with her little party.

Her Aunty Ng called just now to check on her condition and also to see if we're coming in her her party. I told her better not and perhaps we can have it on Wednesday morning when I send her in. Luckily for me, Secret Recipe is willing to hold on to her cake for me and I will pick it up tomorrow to be kept at Aunty Ng's. I've no space left in my fridge to keep a 2 and a half kg cake (I know it is hard to believe coming from someone who hardly cooks at home!)

Aunty Ng said not to mention to the girl about what we're going to do on Wednesday stating that some of the kids at the daycare have also fallen sick before their party and had to cancel last minute. And this is because they knew about their upcoming parties. I actually had this in mind too but didn't give it any thought till Aunty Ng mentioned it. Some Chinese taboo thingy I believe. Some kids are just sensitive towards these I guess. We shall see how next year's go then.... :)

Anyhow, when we left SJMC about 1 plus in the afternoon, we wanted to have lunch and decided for TGIF since we can celebrate her birthday and get some people to sing to her. It was such a bad idea as the girl was already tired and we had to rush the people to sing to her first before she fell asleep. Seeing the poor girl's condition after the birthday song was sang to her, hubby decided to pack all our ordered food and go home.

It has been a tiring weekend for all of us. The girl refuses to take her medication and we had to coax her. Mind you, this process takes a very long time, at least half an hour and more. Initially, she will take her fever medication orally as we threatened her with the suppositories (which she is afraid off eversince her constipation issues) but since she puked out some one night, she has been saying "vomit" every time we ask her to take her medication. So, I've given up in coaxing her and just forced the suppositories up her bum. And as for sponging her or putting the coolaid thingy on her forehead to cool her temperature down, this has also been another battle. She refuses all these, including taking her temperature (even the forehead reader!). Day time, I will give her a shower to cool her body but night time, we had no choice but to wait for the medicine to work on her. Lucky for us, she asks for water throughout the night so I'm guessing it is this that also cools her down.

She is asleep now as I'm typing this. I should also sleep as I'm not feeling too well from all the lack of sleep and battles with the girl. What a new year eve celebration for us....we will be asleep early tonight for sure and will not even see the fireworks happening outside our window like we saw last year.

Didn't expect to end the year like this nor have the last post here to sound so dreary. Hopefully, tomorrow, the 1st day of 2008 will be a better one for us. As for her birthday celebrations, will make it up to her when she is feeling way better. Happy Birthday Rye Li! Mummy and Papa promise you that you will have many, many, many more happy celebrations to come for your birthdays!

And a happy new year to all of you! :D

And so this is Christmas

It was an eventful weekend towards Christmas. First, it was a celebration with our London family friends on Saturday night. Pictures as follows:-

my London boyfriend, Emre, enjoying his chunk of lamb. he is 3 weeks older than me.

this is Emre's mummy, Aunty Mills, I'm not as friendly as Emre and didn't want her to carry me

with Uncle Peter, one of the gang from London as well

took me awhile to blend in and when I did, I was all over with the kids running here and there and I was all drenched in sweat

My cousin's Jo Tien's birthday that day and we all celebrated with him as well that night

Then it was dinner with our Australian relatives on Sunday night...

And on Christmas eve, we were at Mummy's Grandma's house....

The first thing I did, to sit on the chair, refusing to be brought anywhere else in the house as I was scared of the dog. Mummy had to coax me a good 10 minutes to get out of the car.

this is the first time we have this at the house, done by my Nana (Mummy's Aunty Na with Natalie's help, mummy's little cousin)

as usual, the Christmas tree with his overloading pressies

with the kids in front of the Christmas tree

the next day at Mummy's Grandma's on the swing

We went back to Mummy's Grandma's house on Christmas day to open my Christmast presents and then later we went to my Kai Yeh's (godfather) parent's house, my Kong-Kong and Por-Por Hwang for the rest of the day...we met Aunty Pei See, Uncle Ronnie, Uncle Adrian, Aunty Siew Wye and Shawn there.

Shawn got me a Christmas present which was a range of masak-masak set (malay: cooking) and I really enjoyed playing with it.

I even started making tea and stuff to offer to everyone....










But the real tea or in this case coffee was better with the home-made egg tarts done by Aunty Siew Wye....

a family christmassy picture

Shawn and I were monkeying around....

After all that playing and monkeying around, we were both so tired...just nice in ending the night. And so this is my Christmas for this year. Hope you had a good one as well!

Sick again

What is with year end and sick babies?!!! Go around on the mommies blogs and you will see a few kids are illl lately. And I'm one of them.

I've been having an eye infection in my left eye since we got back from our Pangkor Island trip more than a week back but it was pretty mild. And mummy didn't think she should bring me to see the doctor. Then when I got back from Aunty Ng's on Wednesday night, my eyes were kind of swollen and the next morning (which was yesterday) I had a mild fever of 38 degrees.

Mummy took me to see Dr. Foo (the one I like) and he confirmed my eye infection and said the fever was not part of it and that I'd probably got a viral infection again. So he asked to manage my fever with fever medication and he gave some eye-drops and ointment for my eyes.

I don't allow anyone, not even Aunty Ng to administer the eye medicine on me so I've been tricked to having them put on my eye.

My fever didn't exactly go away and it went to as high as 40 degress in the middle of the night last night. Mummy wasn't sure whether it could be higher since the forehead thermometer we got has a maximum of 40 degrees. I was woken up and forced to take the fever medication.

When I got up this morning, the fever was in between 38 and 39 degrees. Mummy asked Aunty Ng to give me the fever medication throughout the day to stabilize it. She hopes my fever will go away by tomorrow morning, if not, I will have to be brought back to see Dr. Foo again if it is still high.

As for my left eye, it's not getting any better and I predict there will be more screams and cries from me tonight.

I pray that I will get well to at least celebrate my birthday on Monday.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

This is a video Mummy managed to take of me singing (ok, more like Mummy singing)....

I love singing this song lately but I didn't actually sing it fully in the video as I wasn't being very cooperative. Mummy had to do this so many times and finally she had to bribe me...with a sweet!

A couple of days later, she tried her luck again...also numerous times...and this is what she got...

Merry Christmas everybody and a Happy New Year!

Mummy's entry - This morning

This morning, hubby had to leave earlier than us for work and I would be the one sending Rye Li off to the daycare later. She knew that it was me that will be sending her and that hubby had to leave early.

I was in the toilet when hubby left the house. The girl was wandering around on her own. I was talking to her from the toilet and after several minutes not getting any response from her, I came out to check on her and noticed such a sad face with tears welling up in her eyes. I quickly took her to me, gave her a hug and asked why is she so sad? Had to continue soothing her while explaining to her that her papa has to go to work early as he was late and that she will see him after work later in the evening. After all that talk, I thought she was alright as she walked out of the room. I followed her into our living room and she just laid down on her mattress and started sucking her thumb. I went on to get ready for work and let her be. She didn't make any noise and just laid there the whole time. This went on for a good 15 minutes till it was time for us to leave the house.

This is very unusual as she is usually very noisy and cannot sit still on her own in the house. She will always call out for me or use her favourite phrase "What are you doing?" or will come to find me.

She is getting really sensitive these days and I realized now that I need to start treating her like an adult. We need to explain to her why things are the way they are over and over again. And she's only 2 years old!

Mummy's entry - San Francisco

*this is a backdated post of the remaining spots of our US trip leading first from here, here, here, here and here. there will be 2 more after this*

Once we arrived at San Francisco, we checked into Hyatt Hotel which was situated near Fisherman's Wharf and headed off to pier 39, the happening place. On the way, we came across a museum-like place which housed all the old games that you would find at a funfair many many years ago. I didn't like this place, gave me the creeps (I don't like old stuff!) We decided to take a cruise ride for an hour and the next available one was their last one so we wandered off around the area while waiting for our ride.

putting back her hairclips into its container after tying her hair, getting ready to go out

posing infront of the submarine, this was next to the museum with loads of old stuff

an alcatraz infront of The Alcatraz at a distance, which was named after this bird's species

enjoying our ice creams at Pier 39 before our cruise

queing up for our cruise

On the boat on our cruise....

posing for the camera with Alcatraz at the background from a distance

the infamous seals hanging out at the regular spots at Pier 39

a closer look at the seals...if you think they look so peaceful, you should be there, they were so noisy!

a view of The City from the boat

We were initially worried that we can't see much taking the last ride of the day since it was getting dark but we were wrong. It's was a good thing we did as we saw this...

a view of the Golden Gate with the sun setting at the back

a view of Alcatraz again

a group picture taken by a kind gentleman who offered when he noticed i was taking pictures throughout our cruise

the girl fell asleep less than halfway through the journey

a view of The City with the moon from a distance

After the cruise, we hung out at Pier 39 and had the infamous Seafood Chowder with sour dough bread. There were so many outlets offering this and we just settled for one. And since the girl was already feeling not too good and her appetite got worst, I decided not to meet up with Belle and her mummy the next day (we were suppose to while we were there). But we talked on the phone though that night itself. It was good thing we didn't meet up too as Rye Li's condition got worst the next day and we wouldn't want to pass her germs to Belle or her mummy since they were hosting Belle's party that weekend itself.

The next morning, we decided to take the infamous cable car (I seriously don't know why they call it this as my version of a cable car is those that takes you up in the sky, not on the road. The ones on the road I know is called a tram but in US, it's vice versa....go figure!). Anyhow, we bought day passes for the cable car and took the first one to Chinatown to have Dim Sum (which was recommended by the Hotel's cleaner whom was Chinese). Too bad we were too busy eating to even take photos of the food. It was really delicious!

they way the girl slept most of the night and I only got that teeny weeny space to sleep, hubby slept on the floor as he found the double bed too small for us, with the way the girl sleeps!

at the sign at Chinatown, we walked a fair bit through the steep roads (luckily it was mostly going downhill) to that sign

After that, we walked to Macy's Union Square and hung out at the little park. I love this spot as there were alot of people around from all classes, mainly office people hanging around during their lunch hour. How I wish we have one like this in KL, actually we do have spots like this but our weather doesn't permit us to hang out like this. We came back to Macy's Union Square that evening to have our dinner at Cheesecake Factory which is situated at the rooftop.

at the little park at Macy's Union Square

After the park, we took the cable car to Lambard Street. I seriously didn't know what was so special about it at that time, just going with the flow of SIL's suggestions. Once we reached the destination, I was awed by what was awaiting us. This street has become a tourist attraction for its curvy road designs surrounded by beautiful plants along the way. We walked down this road by the sides which also leads to the houses along this road. They must worth a fortune alright but I pity the people staying there though, having so many foreign people walking up and down it everyday! The girl was asleep by this time in the sling on me and boy, it was torturing having her weight on me walking down the steep stairways. It got bad that I was limping as I think the weight added on to my nerves and I couldn't walk properly (reminded me of the time when I was 8 months pregnant with her and my limping started till after a month Rye Li was delivered!). Luckily, the limping didn't stay on for long after that.

After this, we walked towards Ghirardelli's factory, a chocolate factory. I didn't know this brand existed till this trip. The chocolates were really good, well the dark ones anyway! Before we approached the factory, we came across a park by the beach and decided to hang out there for bit. Again, how I wish we have parks like this back home! :)

One of the houses we passed by during our walk, halloween theme. i love the way the people go all the way in decorating their houses to celebrate Halloween. it was a pity that we were not around for it as the girl would have loved it. Ok, more like I would have loved it! ;)

the steep roads that you see all over The City

the park that we came across and hung out for a bit

papa and daughter taking a stroll along the beach at the park

the chocolate factory from a distance

After Ghirardelli's short tour, we took the cable car back to Macy's Union Square to have our dinner at Cheesecake Factory. It was around 6pm by this time and a good thing we were early too as there will be a long queue if you were to come around dinner time. We had a good view of the city during our dinner as we sat outside. Luckily, there were portable heaters out there or we would have freezed away. Foodwise, it was alright but very huge portions that we had to take away some. The girl didn't eat much though and her cough was getting worst by this time. She was also cranky and gluey to me.

hanging out at the merchandise display while waiting to be seated

To digress a little, when I spoke to Belle's mummy the night before, I also asked her on what type of medication could we get for Rye Li's running nose and cough and she recommended one that Belle has taken before. We stopped by the pharmacy on the way back to the hotel but we couldn't find it and those others that were available mentioned not to be given to children under 2 years old unless presribed by the doctor so we didn't want to risk it. The next morning, SIL called one of her friends whose dad is a paed and asked him a favour on the kind of medication Rye Li can take for her condition and was recommended one later. During the day, when we came across a pharmacy, we went to look for this medication but the store couldn't sell it to us as their cash register system showed it was one of the medications that was recalled back a few weeks back. So we were back to square one and prayed that the medication I brought from Malaysia (recommended by Rye Li's paed) will work but she hasn't been showing signs of improvement when I started this medication on her when we were at Monterey Bay.

After dinner at Cheesecake factory, we decided to head back to the hotel and get some early rest. Later that night while we were sleeping around 11pm, the girl started a coughing fit and it became so bad that she threw up her milk she just drank before she slept as well as the little dinner she had on herself and on the bed.

I had to clean her up with the help of hubby while SIL called the hotel's housekeeping to come in to change the bedsheet. Luckily it was 11pm and the last shift was still around. After the girl was cleaned up and the bed freshly made, we lined her area of the bed with towels just in case. She slept immediately and thankfully, there was no more vomitting that night.

The next day, we left San Francisco for Napa Valley. But we drove through the Golden Gate and stopped for a while to take pictures...

like mother like daughter, the girl mimicking me, it was really cold that we had to walk with our hands in the pockets

like father like daughter

Next stop....Napa Valley!

p.s. so sorry it took so long for me to update these....the photos have been in draft for so long! havent actually got the time to post the stories up...so bear with me, another 2 more on our US trip.