NagMummy

M has been taking medicines for her flu and cough for about a month now. It’s been her longest period of medication. She was just beginning to look and sound better over the past few days, only to start coughing again today! What a nightmare…

We really feel so helpless! It’s just beyond us, even doctors can only do this much.

In times like this, when my fridge is choke-full of medicines, I always only refer to my book ‘Concise Guide to Medicines and Drugs’ for better understanding of all those bottles.

I first bought this book when my dad suffered a minor stroke some years ago and was prescribed loads of drugs. He was constantly asking me what a particular medicine was for and I had no choice but to look around a medicine dictionary. I am a complete idiot with medicines.

Anyway, doctors sometimes do not have the time to fully explain all the medicines to us, including their side effects. I remember one time when M started shivering after she took a particular medicine. We were so frightened then, especially with her shuddering attacks history. Well, it turned out to be a side effect of the drug.

This book has proved really useful, sometimes even better than the medicine

This is the second time we brought M out of the country and the 4-hour flight to Taipei proved too long for her. She was not very interested in the inflight entertainment, surprisingly. Perhaps it was because the headphones were too big for her. Anyway, I was happily enjoying myself one row behind as Matt & Mum ‘tackled’ her.

It’s my first time in Taipei and it reminded me of Hong Kong and Seoul but getting around was definitely easier as they spoke Mandarin. We were on our own so we took things at our own pace. Plus it’s not the peak season so we did not have to wrestle with other tourists. We had three days of good weather and had to braced rainy weather the other three days.

Here’s what we did during our 6D5N there.

Monday – PM – Arrival into Taipei 台北. Transfer to Beitou 北投 – Spring City Resort 春天酒店. Nice spacious room with everything we need. Went to Danshui 淡水 – Fisherman’s Wharf 漁人碼頭 and watched sunset. Proceeded to Danshui Old Street 淡水老街 for dinner and some shopping.

Tuesday – AM – Went to Yangmingshan 陽明山, walked around the park. Saw the first cherry blossom and reached a waterfall area. PM – Lunch at a local restaurant at Beitou. Back to hotel and tried the hot spring tub in the hotel room. Can’t stand the sulphur smell! Dinner at local eatery at Xin Beitou 新北投.

Wednesday – AM – Went to outdoor hot spring in hotel with Mum while Matt chilled in the room with M. Much better experience in the open and with the different treatment pools! PM – Checked out and transferred to Taipei – Hotel Royal 老爺大酒店. Smaller room but with luxurious bedding and a fully automated toilet bowl. Went to Shilin Night Market 士林夜市. Got lost getting there from the Shilin MRT station, realised we should have gotten off 1 station before – Jiantan 劍潭. Anyway, had some nice snacks and boy, it was crowded!

Thursday – AM –  Stopped by Longshansi 龍山寺 and then quick lunch at the mall nearest to the hotel – Shin Kong Mitsukoshi 新光三越. PM – Booked a local tour to Jiufen 九份. On the way there, visited some rock formations. Was raining by the time we reached Jiufen and made walking along the steep old street 九份老街 difficult. Also, we did not have much time as the tour guide gave us around 50 minutes there only to bring us to a local jewellery store later where we were coerced to buy something Dinner at a local restaurant near the hotel. Matt brought M back to hotel while Mum and I shopped around longer.

Friday – AM – Lazy morning as we were all tired. After late breakfast, we were not sure whether to go to Yeliu 野柳 to see more rock formations or a sunflower farm – Sun and Green 向陽農場 – I had read about online. As the weather was forecast to be rainy, we thought it was perhaps not a good idea to go to Yeliu. But as we got on a taxi to go to the sunflower farm, the taxi driver explained that the sunflower farm was going towards to direction of the airport and after chatting for a while, he suggested that we go to Yeliu that day and go to the sunflower farm enroute to the airport the next day. On the way to Yeliu, it started to rain and when we reached, the strong coastal wind made it extra cold. Because of the rain, we did not stay long. Taxi driver brought us to buy our favourite Taiyangbing – Sun Buscuit 太陽餅 from 犁記 on our way back! Dinner was at a Hong Kong style restaurant, Matt couldn’t take any more local food, he wanted to go Mac’s!

Saturday – AM – Same taxi driver came to pick us up and brought us to the sunflower farm. It was raining and not exactly enjoyable. We saw only one plot of sunflowers as the peak is sometime in April. Headed to the airport for a quick lunch before boarding flight back.

Overall, we felt more tired than our previous R&R trip to Langkawi. Matt suffered aching arms as he had to carry M most of the time. We were lucky that M’s cough did not worsen there but neither did it get better. She threw up some milk two nights so we did not really sleep well. I wished we had more time for shopping, we hardly did any real shopping, which is always a challenge with M.

On the flight back, M was very engrossed with the inflight entertainment, watching Dora 4 times. She did not manage to nap and was grouchy. Mum was tired out so she sat between Matt and I.

And we’re definitely happy to be home and it’s time to nurse M back to health…

M seemed to be suffering from the most common effect of starting childcare – falling sick more often. Perhaps she did not recover fully from the last time she fell sick in late December. She started coughing again on Thursday morning in the first week of 2010. Since we still had medicine, I self-medicated her and she stayed home for the day. She got better but still coughed infrequently.

The following Wednesday, she came down with a slight fever and her cough seemed to have gotten worse. I brought her to the GP who prescribed the exact same medicine as the last time. The fever went down pretty fast but the cough persisted. We decided to keep her home the rest of the week to get better before our holiday to Taipei the next week.

By Friday, we got really worried because her cough was not getting any better. We did not know whether it was advisable to bring her to Taipei because of the colder and drier weather there, not to mention the threat of the H1N1. We decided to consult her paediatrician but the though of the Saturday morning wait especially without appointment really put us off. Hence, we searched online for another paediatrician nearby and found a few around Bishan.

And so we brought M to The Children’s Medical Centre for the first time. We were the first patient of the day! The pd thought her condition was not serious enough to warrant pushing back the trip. She prescribed new medication for us to bring along. The clinic is open on Sunday mornings so the pd told us to bring her in if her condition worsens. She also said that if M’s condition worsens in Taipei, we should consult a doctor there.

It was assuring hearing that we could go on the trip as planned. We had been in quite a dilemma those few days whether to postpone the trip which would involve hassle and money.

Here we come, Taipei!

Last Thursday was supposed to be M’s last class at Little Neuro Tree. We had to miss it because of a less-than-cooperative M and the lack of taxis in rainy weather. M kept refusing to get changed and when she finally did, I failed to get a taxi. It was difficult getting through phone lines and assignment of taxi took forever. After trying 2 taxi companies, I gave up to save us a wasted trip.

Thinking back just nine months ago when we first signed up for the course, she was always so excited to go for class. These days, I usually have to coerce her to get ready for the class. During class, she is fidgety during the flash card and counting sessions and tend to want to spend longer time in specific activities like pretend play. As a matter of fact, a few other kids who started around the same time as us also seemed to have been losing interest in class.

Hence, we decided we’ve discontinue classes after December because I think we’ve gotten enough out of the programme and probably reached “a point beyond which each additional unit of the variable input yields smaller and smaller increases in outputs”, to quote Wikipedia on the definition of the economics law of diminishing marginal returns.

Nonetheless, I think we’ve benefitted and enjoyed the nine months we’ve been there. I see how M can now concentrate during the memory games and get them more and more often. The activities in class also provided me ideas of what we can do together at home. As usual, it provided us a chance to learn together, like the Japanese songs.

Overall, I would say the programme has a bit of everything for everyone, from brain stimulation to phonics to math to music and movement etc. But because of this, the amount of time they can spend on each segment can be very short. Given that M now spends half-a-day five days a week in a pre-nursery programme, I feel there will be a fair amount of overlap in activities.

At the same time, M is approaching her 3rd birthday very soon and that is when the human brain starts shifting from being right-brain dominant to left-brain dominant, more details in my earlier post. I suspect the methods of learning will also need to be more hands on, more exploration in nature. Getting them to sit behind a desk for an hour will likely get increasing challenging.

Well, in truth, there’re so many other interesting courses out there that I’ll like M to try out so it’s time to move on!

Happy 2010!

As a parent, the best part of 2009 has been watching M acquire a quantum leap in her oral skills. From single words to short phrases to sentences to songs. Truly amazing! I would say that M can effectively communicate herself about 80% of the time now, taking away most of the guesswork we had to go through in her first 2 years.

She’s such a ‘big girl’ now that I can hardly recognise her in her baby photos. I always tell friends that the first 6 months were the toughest, but after going through 3/4 of her ‘terrible two’ year, I can’t decide if that still holds true. Perhaps it’s more right to say there’re more ups and downs as M grows.

M has gotten awfully heavy too! At least for me. At half my height, carrying her (11kg) over a short distance can turn out to be quite a workout and I never had bigger arms than now. It has also made my aching back and feet worse. I can’t be happier that lift upgrading to every level is finally coming to us (well, if it gets through the balloting stage). Never mind the noise and pollution!

Overall, I’m just glad that 2009 came and went peacefully. No major gains or losses. Just watching M grow has been the greatest joy

Monday, M fell sick again this Monday despite after our efforts to boost her immunity. However, we believe she did not get it from school. She came home fine on Friday and stayed well till late Sunday night, when she coughed a few times. I was not overly concerned then.

We had gone to a friend’s place for dinner last Sunday. M was happily chomping down her favourite noodles and pizza and we did not suspect anything wrong. I must say though that on the 19th floor, SQ’s place was quite breezy but it did not feel too cold. (M is especially susceptible to oncoming cold winds and sudden changes in weather.)

But when I heard M coughed in bed again the following morning before we picked her up, I had a bad feeling. To be on the safe side, I added some cough medicine to her milk and we headed for school. In fact, she was going on her first school excursion to the Hay Dairies goat farm and I was tagging along too. When we reached school, her temperature was still normal.

By the time we reached the goat farm located at Lim Chu Kang, M was beginning to feel warm. Nonetheless, she still got excited watching the milking session and taking a tour of the farm. Luckily the farm was a small one because by the end of that hour, M’s forehead was feeling hot!

On the bus trip back, she was really tired and grouchy, trying to sleep in my lap with the background of noisy children banter. Once we reached school, we picked up her bag and left. Her fever went down by Wednesday and she’s still coughing slightly.

Yesterday morning, we brought her to the Pasir Ris Park. And in the evening, we had dinner at a relative’s place and M was again back to her usual self. Let’s hope this will be her last time falling sick in 2009.

Happy Holidays!

It’s been a while since I browsed the Recruit section of The Straits Times. When we first had a helper about two years ago, I did some free lance work for around a year. During that period, I did contemplate going back to work but never came across anything that moved me enough to even send in a resume.

After we let our helper go, I’ve been so tied up with taking care of M that I hardly bothered browsing this section of the Saturday paper, especially with the onslaught of the financial crisis. With M settling down quite nicely in childcare, I thought about the possibility of going back to work again.

Hence, I picked up Recruit today and browsed through it. Although the news have been reporting an end to our recession, it seems from the thickness of this section that it hasn’t filtered to the job market yet.

I think I still have reservations about returning to a corporate environment. Power and money struggles tend to bring out the ugly side of people and I do not enjoy being part of it. I’m the ‘do-er’ kind who just wants to get the work done and go home.

What I missed most is the social aspect of work, especially when we meet great colleagues. And that can bring about some life-enriching experiences. But overall, I still do not feel enough motivation to move out of my status quo.

Guess I’ll just have to continue working for free!

M started half-day childcare at Schoolhouse by the Garden this Monday. I was allowed to stay in the centre for 3 days to ease her in, which I did. And so far so good. She visited the school once and has been excited about starting school. To prepare her for school, I’ve been reading the above book for the past 2 months. And every time we pass by a childcare centre, I’ll point out that all the children are without mummies and follow their teachers’ instructions.

On her first day, we arrived in time for breakfast and I sat behind her while she eat her cornflakes. She was probably a little unsure and looked back at me a few times. After that, the teachers brought the children to a play corner with blocks and cooking toys. M got excited and I decided to make a quick exit, said goodbye and went out of eye-shot. I hanged around for the rest of the morning, taking peeps from time to time. After her lunch, I asked her if she wants to pee and brought her to the toilet. As I wasn’t sure if she’ll tell her teachers when she needs to pee, she wore diaper that day. Overall, she did well.

On Tuesday, they had water play and M joined in. But when she got splashed water in her face, she cried. I went to take a look while the teacher was undressing her to give her a quick shower. After the shower, she was crying “mummy carry…” so I helped to dress her. She calmed down when she started to play with the toys. She did not eat much for lunch so I went into the kitchen to feed her and she finished one bowl.

On Wednesday, I sat outside the centre mostly. I informed the teachers that she’s not wearing diaper so they’ll have to remind her to toilet. Around 10+, I heard M crying “mummy carry… i want to go…”. It went on for a long while, I was very tempted to have a look but held myself back. I heard one teacher trying to pacify her but she continued wailing, lasting about 30 min, until lunch time. I found out later that one boy had hit M’s head with the bubble stick and she retaliated by scratching his face. The teacher told her off and she started to cry. Cavemen!

We did not go yesterday as she had lessons at Little Neuro Tree. So, today was her real test. We were actually quite nervous! I left after her teacher carried her into the kitchen for breakfast. She wined a little but did not cry. I said goodbye and made a quick exit. I jumped when my phone rang around 10. Haha… it was mum! And when I picked her up at 12.30pm, she was happily playing blocks with 2 other girls. Her teacher said she did not cry and everything went well.

I’m most surprised seeing how she enjoys playing with other kids. Even though she plays with cousin S very often, M has never played so readily with other kids. She’s diaper free in school too! She’s usually reluctant to use toilets outside home. And she seems to be enjoying herself, telling us what she did in school and looking forward to school.

As for me, I miss seeing how she reacts to different situations, which I could in accompanied lessons. But I got a few hours of free time this morning in return. Not a bad deal at all. I guess it’s time to let go…

11 December 2009 – Megan’s Independence Day!

As we enter our tropical winter season, we always worry about M catching a flu. That’s after a bad experience when she was 9 months old. A sick child is every parent’s nightmare. And especially for kids below 2 years old, their choice of medication is rather limited so the recovery can take longer.

As self-confessed ‘kia-si’ parents, here are our 3 top picks to weather it out:

Bao Ying Dan (Bo Ying Compound – Eu Yan Sang): M takes a small dose everyday (below their recommended dosage though because she is taking another TCM powder). It helps with preventing and treating flu and cough symptoms and other common children problems like restlessness at night, poor appetite, vomiting of milk, excessive air in the stomach and diarrhoea.

We used to give her Ba Bao San (also from Eu Yan Sang) which has similar effects as Bao Ying Dan but is recommended more for calming young children’s nerves. We switched to Bao Ying Dan early this year because it targets flu more.

Lil Critters Vitamin C Supplement (for kids 2 years & above): M started taking them recently as she mixes with other children more often and also to prepare her for childcare.

When she was younger, we gave her Delrosa Rose Hip Syrup water, which also contains Vitamin C.

Mentholatum Cherry Chest Rub for Kids: Apart from prescribed medication, we find this rub around M’s neck and chest helps relieve symptoms like blocked nose. Especially useful for better sleep.

Besides stocking these, we minimise outings and limit time spent at crowded areas. And we always make sure she is well covered, which includes socks and headgear.

Fingers crossed for an ‘uneventful’ winter!

No way!

Although I don’t take it very often, Hainanese chicken rice is definitely one of my local favourites. Unfortunately, Types Bs like me, Matt and M are advised to trade chicken for turkey. Why? According the book, Cook Right 4 Your Type by Dr Peter J. D’Adamo, “Chicken contains a Type B agglutinating lectin in its muscle tissue, particularly in the breast meat. This lectin disturbs your system and can potentially lead to strokes and autoimmune disorders.”

I first read Eat Right 4 Your Type some years ago. Even though I found the contents of the book quite convincing – that every blood type is suited for different diets due to different digestive systems, it was difficult following through with the recommendations. Main reason was I wasn’t the one preparing my meals.

Before I continue, here’s the back cover for a quick overview:

“If your blood type is O, stick to high protein (red meat) and low carbohydrates

If your blood type is A, you should be a vegetarian (high carbohydrates, low fat)

If your blood type is B, you can enjoy most dairy products, as well as a balance of meat, fish, grains, vegetables and fruit.

If your blood type is AB, your diet should be mostly vegetarian, with modest supplements of meat and dairy”

So, since I started preparing meals (buying the ingredients and cooking) for M about a year ago, I realised I finally had no excuse for not following the Type B diet. The most difficult part of it has really been avoiding chicken, which is such a mainstay. I’ve managed to stop cooking chicken now, but we still take half of our meals are at my mum’s place where I don’t decide the menu.

Another item difficult to do away with is tomato! Who would have thought that tomatoes which have been touted as an antioxidant powerhouse be unsuitable for Type Bs? Again, “Tomatoes must be eliminated from the Type B diet. The panhaemaglutinans produce a strong reaction, usually in the form of irritation of the stomach lining.” Tomato base pastas are another favourite of ours. Although I like cheese, I’ve never quite taken to cream base pastas well, so we make do with aglio olio style pastas these days. What about pizzas? I make them myself now, with only cheese topping!

In the book, every blood type is given a “Highly Beneficial”, “Neutral”, “Avoid” list of foods. As suggested by the author, the first step is trying to eat more of the “Highly Beneficial” foods and slowly eliminate foods from the “Avoid” list. These days, I try to stock my kitchen with “Highly Beneficial” foods. I’m definitely not done eliminating food from the “Avoid” list, but this book is by my bedside and I refer to it from time to time.

Sounds too extreme? As it is, I don’t think we can ever avoid all the food listed in the “Avoid” list. But then, as the Chinese saying goes 病从口入 – casually translated as “illness finds its way in through the mouth”

I ought to give it a try at least!