All About Your Child

Last night I was blog-hopping at 1am in my sister’s room after sending my kids to dreamland. After the weekend break over at the Chalet, I’ve got lots of posts to read and lots of catching up to do with some bloggers….

But before I was through to the 2nd blog post, my 4-year-old started coughing badly. I’m used to it (more or less) already ever since he was diagnosed with bronchitis almost 2 years ago. So I ignored his cough and continued my reading…..then…

I heard whining…

I heard small quick footsteps…

I turned my head towards the sounds…

I saw a small tiny figure in yellow t-shirt dashed into the dark living room….

then “#$%&&%$^&”….the sound of vomit.

I dashed out of my sis’s room and switched on the lights to see where is my little Keatkeat…

He was standing just next to the dustbin. But he couldn’t find it in the darkness and the vomits were all over the floor. He was still coughing hard when I move towards him.

I was so proud of him. He did it! Finally! He did it! He no longer lay lying on his mattress and cough till he vomits. He knows himself so well now.

He knows he’s gonna vomit, so he ran out to look for the dustbin, he knows the trouble that dear Papa and Mommy got to go through in the washing his mattress whenever he vomited on it due to extreme coughing; he understands, he loves his new mattress too much to hurt it like the way he did to his previous one….

I stepped on the vomit (I didn’t care), I knelt (prefer to kneel than to squat) there holding the dustbin just below his chin to signal him that he can go ahead and throw up whatever till he feels it was enough.

I kept saying, “I am so proud of you…Good boy, you didn’t vomit on your bed…I am so proud of you…”

I went on and on till he coughed onto my face once, that’s when I changed my sentence to, “Please cough and vomit into the dustbin and not on my face!” He listened and he followed my instructions. That’s when I carried on with the encouraging words.

It’s really difficult for a kid to be asleep and yet in the nick of time, be able to react so fast, so well, so clear-minded, I am truly proud of my boy’s reaction last night. With so much commotion, my hubby’s sleep was disrupted too. He woke up to help to clean up my boy, changed him and gave him a cup of warm water, while I mopped the floor….and because of the sudden wake-up call, my hubby couldn’t get back to sleep till 5am!

My boy was alright after the throw-up, its usual, we are so used to it, he is so used to it. After a 5min rest, he said, “Good Night Papa. Good Night Mommy.” And off he went to his clean mattress, hugged his 2 bolsters and fell asleep in less than 10mins on his own.

Sometimes Keatkeat displays his level of maturity in areas that we least expect, he is always giving us surprises with his growing intelligence in more areas than one.

I remember melting under the hot sun on Monday and then I am cold like ice yesterday and today. With the unpredictable weather these days, Keatkeat is coughing harder than usual, he is showing signs that his bronchitis may be coming over for a visit again…let’s hope he sleeps well tonight. *Sweet Dreams*

Its so easy to complain when the kid did it wrong…but how often do parents say “good job” when it was done the right way….I don’t see many parents around me who do that…but several does it among my blog friends…*smile*

These photos were taken over the weekend when I was at the Chalet, but with my lousy camera-phone. The big difference between this chalet and the previous one we had for Weidong’s Birthday was I was there...hee hee hee….I wasn’t sick like the other time so I went for the sleep-over party.

My look-like-me niece, ZengYee and my 2 boys woke up earlier than the rest. So with me, the big kid around, no time should be no-fun time. So got them washed up and brought the 3 of them for a McDonald Breakfast and then went straight to bowling! Not for me, its for them!

Orchid Bowl @ E!Hub.

Located at Downtown East, the nerve-centre of bustling activities. This 32-lane bowling centre comes with the first-in-Singapore Miniature Bowling for the Kids!

Here the kids were observing how the adults do it while I was changing my S$10 note into S$1.00 coins.

Each game of 6 frames cost S$2.00. I know how addictive bowling can be so my idea was for them to have just 5 games.

They took turns, not on each game, that would be too long for them to wait. So they took turns on each throw. Super fun for them to play and for me to watch! *laugh*

The lanes are about 3/4 the length of the normal adult bowling alley. So even if your kid is as young as mine, their small push should be strong enough to roll the ball to the end of the lane.

The GOOD thing about these 2 mini-bowling alleys is the Gutter-Preventer (that’s what I call it).

There is a lower chance of having a disappointed kid, whose bowling ball kept going into the gutter.

The Gutter-Preventer (see the luminous yellow strips at the sides) will help the ball to stay in lane to at least hit a pin or two.

It stretches over 9/10 of the lane, so there is still a chance that the ball will drop into the gutter at the very last minute before it touches the pins.

If you have a kid who is pretty good at bowling, you could PUSH DOWN the Gutter-Preventer to make it more challenging for him/her too. Yes, it’s optional to pull-up the Gutter-Preventer.

The BALL comes in one weight with NO finger-holes, which I think is good, to prevent finger-fracture for the small-fingers. So its really pick up and throw, oops! I mean roll! There are 5 balls shared by the 2 lanes.

But there was something that kept spoiling the fun. If you bring kids that are young like my boys, 3 and 4 years old, you may encounter this :

Sometimes when their ball’s motion is too zig-zag and it dropped into the gutter just before it touches the pins…there is a high chance that it may stopped rolling and stay in the gutter. (See photo on left)

In this case, you got to either throw another ball by the gutter to push down the ’stuck’ ball, which result in a foul, because 2 balls are sensed by the sensor; or you got to throw another ball at the pins, in this case, the ball that is ’stuck’ remained ’stuck’ there, till you use a long umbrella to push it down, which was what we kept doing towards the end, where the kids’ strength was decreasing significantly after so many throws. *Laugh*

The mini-bowling alley doesn’t have a ’sweeper’ like the ones in the adult’s alley, so there is no way the ’stucked’ bowling ball could be swept away.

The pins are on strings. After every throw, all the pins, be it dropped or not, will be raised and then the sensor will put down the un-dropped pins captured from the previous throw.

Though there are imperfection, I still think its a great idea to have the kids in mind when the bowling alley was built for the adults.

Oh, there’s another good thing, the toilet is just beside the mini-alley, so if you’ve got a kid who is half-way through his bowling game and needed the toilet, Never Fear - ‘cos the Toilet is Near! *Laugh*

Today is the MunYee’s 4th birthday! We celebrated it almost the same way as we did for Weidong’s Birthday - A Chalet Celebration -pretty much the same.

Please allow me to introduce this miracle kid.

When my eldest Sis-in-law was pregnant with her, she bleeds frequently to the extend of being hospitalized for observations and for just-in-case situations. In and out of the hospital she went ever since she was 5 months pregnant and each stay lasted 1 week.

MunYee was born almost-dead. Yes, she was as white as a sheet of paper when she came out from the womb.

Bags of blood and lots of other equipments were poked into the tiny prematured baby like a string-puppet, in order to sustain her life.

For 3 full-months, she went through phototherapy to deal with her jaundice, which was the cause of her unusually dark skin now. The phototherapy not only darken her skin, her TEETH ARE BLACK TOO!

Poor girl started school this year and her classmates LAUGHED at her Black Teeth…*sigh* But that did not stop the like-to-go-to-school-MunYee from having phobia of stepping into her class. She was as determined to go to school as she was determined to live when she came into this world.

Yup! That’s little MunYee, a very stubborn strong girl whose character is very much her icon now. Once she set her mind on doing something, she must get it done even if my Parents-in-law or Bro-in-law chase her with a cane.

See the naughty Binbin licking the cream off his fingers after ’stealing’ it uncaught.

Look at the stare from the birthday girl’s face. *Laugh*

There are very limited photos this time because I FORGOT TO BRING THE CAMERA and my phone-camera is terrible, so all shots were contributed by MunYee’s dad, my eldest Bro-in-law.

I bought 5 presents for MunYee, but BIL only took a shot on the Minnie Bag. The ribbon on Minnie’s Head is a pop-up cushion - Really nice!

On top of that I bought her 2 Mickey-Minnie mouse folders, a Mickey-Minnie mouse coin box and a Mickey-Minnie sticker to past on her ezlink card.

And so I did it again - Won the heart of the birthday child - she was carrying it the whole time and hugging it to sleep too….LOL simply because I bought gifts which have her favorite characters on them….kids are just so easy to please. *wink*

Remember my post about my son was being ‘forced‘ to go home because the teacher refuse to accept my explanation?

Well, my kid is back in school in one piece. No ulcers and obviously no signs of HFMD! The only unhappy thing was - the ‘idiots‘ were not there to witness the grand entrance of my son! LOL because Mommy-me woke up late today and my dear boy was 15mins late for school.

When we reached there the door was closed, which was the sign to ‘chase‘ all those ‘blockers‘ away.

If only the irritating aunties were there today, I’ll probably lay a red carpet with an orchestra right behind my boy as he march in with his head held high, chest up, tummy in and a big smile on his face.

If only the irritating aunties were there today, I’ll hold up a banner that says “My son is NOT HFMD positive! So keep your mouth shut!”

IF ONLY…..*Humph!*

(I want to thank all of you for your kind words and encouragements to my Heavy Heart yesterday, you guys are really a wonderful bunch! May your life be filled with blessings!)

I had been wondering all along, when, just when will Keatkeat’s teacher Mdm Normah snap, how long can I stretched her ‘rubber-band’ of keeping an-eye-closed about Keatkeat’s tongue. ‘cos she was doubtful over my explanation all along….but still she kept her eyes closed and let Keatkeat get into class…

Ever since the hand-foot-mouth disease started 4 months back, the school have been doing regular check-ups BEFORE the kids are allowed to step into the class.

Just last week, a student was down with the illness after the school had a clean record for 5 full weeks. Hence the check-ups were more thorough than before, first they would (prefer the parents to measure the kids’ temperature and record down on the given notebook before the come to school) check the temperature, then the palm of the hands to look out for blisters and finally shine a torchlight into the kids’ mouth to spot ulcers.

You see, my dear Keatkeat have a conditioned since he was a baby - whenever his water intake is too little, he would have ulcers on his tongue. I HAVE mentioned this to Mdm Normah almost every time she spots an ulcer or two in my 4-year-old’s mouth.

But today she was firm, very firm. She spotted 3 ulcers on Keatkeat’s tongue (*Humph* must be the Fried Spring Chicken he ate for dinner last night). She INSISTs that I bring Keatkeat home.

Let me say this first before anything else, I CAN UNDERSTAND, I DO. Even when I was a Child Care Centre teacher, I would not risk the other students’ health, just to please one eager-to-get-his-butt-in-the-class kid, who shows such signs of danger.

But as me, a HUMAN, a Mommy, I can’t stop having thoughts like:

“Damn! It was so difficult to get my little boy out of his bed and yet he is not accepted.”

“Damn! I could have slept for another hour before I head down to my 1-day bazaar later on. Pacifying one kid is easy while setting up the stall, but keeping 2 kids entertained and preventing them from quarrelling / fighting while setting up the stall is *Urrrrgghhh*”"

What makes me go really *Urggghhhhh* were the parents. Seriously, may I ask ALL Parents reading this, “Do you stay at the door of the school and look at your kids after they are in the class and STAY there till the teacher closes all windows and door?!”

I do, BUT ONLY FOR THE FIRST WEEK when my kid is in school FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME IN HIS LIFE. But I won’t do that when he is already in school for almost 2 years now! But there are still sooooooooo mannnnny parents who do!

They would stand AT the door, and blocked other kids who need to get into the class. Making hand-gestures to their kids who were obviously not even looking back. Or Shouting commands like, “K, sit down!….K, don’t do that!….K, that’s wrong Stop It!…..”

If you are one of such parents, can you tell me why do you do that? I know you love your kids but he/she is not in playgroup or nursery already! They are not THAT small! Aren’t you supposed to feel free-to-do-whatever, since you’ve got 3 hours of no-kid time? Wouldn’t you want to make full use of the time and do what you couldn’t do when the kid is around?

Ok, like I was saying, What makes me go really *Urggghhhhh* were the parents. THEY WERE POINTING FINGERS AT US as we were forced to go out of the class and head back home! Then irritating words like,

“Oh dear, my child plays with this boy (referring to my dear still-didn’t-know-what’s-going-on Keatkeat) often….that means my child is in danger now of Hand Foot Mouth Disease!….”

“Oh oh….another one rejected again, this boy must have played with the child who was sick last week.”

“Oh please…parents shouldn’t bring the kid to school if he’s got HFMD…so irresponsible…”

I soooooo wanted to turn my head and give that parent the stare of the devil and scream into her head, “Mdm Normah DID NOT SAY MY CHILD GOT HFMD!!! He got ulcers BECAUSE HE DID NOT DRINK ENOUGH WATER, That’s All!!!

Keatkeat: “Mommy what happened?”

Me: “Mdm Normah didn’t allow you in, because of your mouth ulcers….please drink more water dear…”

Keatkeat: “Mommy, so are we going home now?”

Me: “Yes!”

Keatkeat: “Yeah!!! Then can I go play the Car game since I got nothing to do now?”

Me: *faint!*

I was watching the 10pm show on Channel U, ‘The Perfect Cut’ yesterday, the morale of yesterday’s short stories were about parent-child relationship.

Story 1: A young man wanted to change his face completely because every time he looks at the mirror, he sees his abusive dad’s image.

Dad broke this young man’s toe while hitting him with a broom, smashing his dream of being a ballet dancer. He even cut his ballet shoes into half infront of him.

(these scenes reminded me of the punches from my dad….)

Story 2: A psychiatrist refused to forgive her dad for leaving her and her mom when she was a kid. Now that her dad is dead, she still refused to forgive him. Even though her mom wanted her to go to his grave on his death anniversary, she rejected.

(have I REALLY forgiven my mom….even though now she is dead….)

Throughout the story, questions like….

(with respect to Story 1) “…are you sure even though after a ‘face-off’ plastic surgery, you’ll truly forgive your dad….?”

“….after so many years of lost contact, finally your dad found you and sewed backed the broken ballet shoes….he even humbled himself to say “I’m Sorry” to you….won’t you forgive him?”

The young man’s reply was, “I don’t know….but I know I don’t hate him anymore….”

(what a child wants is only a word of apology….to smoothen the rough feelings in his heart…but that’s something hard for a parent, to swallow his pride to say he’s sorry….)

(with respect to Story 2) “…what’s done can’t be undone…and now that the creator of the hurt is already down to ashes, how then will you forgive him….do you want him to rise up from the grave and say, “I’m Sorry?”…..

….these are questions that’s hard to answer….

I HATE to watch shows that remind me of my family violence, gambling and strained parent-child relationships. I usually switched off the TV or looked away. Because I HATE to be reminded.

For this aspect of my life, I choose to ran away and avoid, I choose NOT to face the tough questions, I choose to bury my messed-up emotions as deep as possible….call me a coward, whatever!

The thought of coming home (a place that’s supposed to be warm and secure) is always heavy hearted. Coming back to a cold steel cage. Coming back to four chilling walls that’s built upon hurt, bruises, blood, screams, tears, fear, anger, hatred…..

My home IS a place I hate to come back to…and ironically I’m still staying in the same four walls, though the colour of the paint is different, the furnitures have changed or rearranged, the members are different, but every corner still reminds me of what happened more than 14 years ago…

A house where ZERO communication is always welcomed. 4 Members in the household, kids hardly talk to parents, and parents hardly talk to each other, sometimes for days, sometimes even weeks….but it’s all good, it’s always preferred.

When there’s communication, there’s a high chance of arguements, then there’ll be a possibility of blows again from my body-builder dad…..and then the peace is broken again…

I saw a book in the bookstores recently, it’s called “A Child Called “it”, and suddenly a thought jumped into me that maybe I could write a book about my childhood, maybe my book could help children to handle better if there’s a gambler in the family, if there’s family violence, broken marriages…..just a sudden thought, just maybe…..

There were so many things, I could have done, but I didn’t know such help was available for my mom, the spark which burned away my family happiness (blame it on my age, blame it on my choice to avoid than to dig deeper into the problem), till the police were involved….till counseling sessions began all too late…

I remember I wrote a letter to both my parents about how I felt, about how I wish it could have been better, about how I thought “peaceful communication” could bring them closer….I wrote, I wrote it all down on 2 pieces of A4 size papers…. did it work? A BIG FAT NO!!!

I could really go on and on about this extreme-childhood….but I would like to stop here…

The lucky part was, my horrible family did not result in me having a phobia towards being someone’s wife  and some kids’ mommy. Thank God!

Many of my friends asked why do I still bother about this issue, now that both my parents are dead, everything is over, isn’t it? My answer is “no”, it’s just the beginning….

Keatkeat started to ask about my parents. He insisted on seeing their pictures, I did show it to him without any hesitation and without any elaboration too. I just passed him the photo album and walked away.

But the time will come…and I can feel it coming really soon…he will ask,

“Do you love your papa and mommy?”

“Do they love you?”

“What do they work as?”

“Did you cry when they die?”

You see,  in my ‘current-happy-almost-perfect’ family, we tell each other we love each other everyday, we hug and kiss each other everyday, we sing, we laugh, we joke, we play as a family everyday.

I CREATED this ‘dream family’ that I am in right now. Whatever that I’ve dreamt of having during my childhood, I MADE IT HAPPENED to this family, to my current family! I wanted to get back all that I’ve lost! It was revenge time for me when my first child was born!

Allan found it hard to adapt to it at first, only during last 2 years, did I see that he has grown to love this kind of family….. Allan didn’t grow up in such a family, in fact, Allan told me that his parents has never mentioned the word ‘Love‘ to any of their children before, but they show their love through their actions; obviously I didn’t grow up in such a family too.

I’ve always wanted my parents to say they love me….but…..(sorry I need a moment…)

So the day will come, when Keatkeat or Binbin decides to ask me all those questions, when I have to face the ‘little-me’ that I’ve hidden in the basement of my heart, completely shut with a thousand stainless steel locks right now….till then I will probably blog about how they reacted to the ugly truth….till then….

Remember Keatkeat brought back a plant from his trip organised by the school? He called it ‘Water-Plant’ then because he was told to water the plant everyday, so it was more like a convenient name.

Today, he asked me if I knew what’s the Real name of the plant. I remembered asking his teacher that very day Keatkeat held that small pot in his hands, but Mdm Normah had no idea.

Any plant experts out there? I haven’t got a clue how to search through Google on such matters, whereby I have nothing but photos. Does Google have a search engine that searches based on photos? *wink*

This is the bud before the flower blooms.

The leaves are pointy but not poky.

The leaves are spread-ed out nicely in the day but gathers together at night, as if they have fallen asleep.

This is the flower, looks a little like carnation.

So far, it’s just pink. Oh silly me, which plant would produce different colored flowers in the same pot.

Just like the leaves, it blooms in the day and closes up at night.

The flower is short-lived, usually less than 36 hours.

Any idea, anyone? Keatkeat would definitely send you his hugs and kisses over to you.

Answer: MOSS ROSE.

Tammy, Keatkeat sent his hugs and kisses to you on a Jet Plane! Thank you! *smile*

My father-in-law was discharged today. THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR CONCERNS, WELL-WISHES and PRAYERS! *muack*

He is back home resting well now, but will be back in the hospital 4-6weeks later to remove the tube which was inserted to enlarge the gall and remove the stone in it as well.

Throughout the hospitalization, Allan has been taking the 30mins drive from our house to my MIL’s house to bring her to the hospital every morning and evening. Because Allan is a property agent, he has control over his ‘work-timing’, so all these doesn’t really disrupt any of his plans.

However when it comes to being discharged, for ‘unknown’ reasons, both my FIL and my MIL insisted on having their favorite son, my 2nd BIL, to fetch them. My 2nd BIL could not take leave today, but because they were so persistent, my 2nd BIL needed to take an urgent 1hr leave just to please his parents.

It’s an open secret that my 2nd BIL IS my parents-in-law’s apple of the eye. He was the only one whom my MIL cried over when he decided to get married and moved out. She was crying her eyes out that previous night, saying how much she’ll miss him and all of that….but neither my 1st BIL nor Allan could even get close to stir up such emotions in her.

Humans are still humans, made from flesh and blood, a creature full of feelings. Unexplainable feelings.

Why does some people ‘click‘ the moment they see each other?

Why others just can’t see eye-to-eye even though they are family members?

There are just so much into people-people relationships, other than horoscope, zodiac, Ba Zi, up-bringing, experiences….there are also alot of mystery behind it all…That’s the beauty of how all of us are MADE different from the one sitting right next to us, ya?

Though (by right) parents should love all their children equally, but somehow, (by left) in real life that’s not true.

Like my own family, my sis is always the favoured one, maybe because I don’t feel close to my parents at all…. after-all I WASN’T part of their lives till I was 5 years old….

In YOUR family, do you love one kid more than the other(s)?

In YOUR own family, are you the favoured one?

Or are you in the perfect family, where your parents love you and your siblings equally?