All About Your Child

(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 curious yesterday to know how you guys feel about bringing kids for hospital visits….Totally agree on the germs and virus part…today there was a new ‘neighbour’ beside my FIL, he had tuberculosis before and it seems that he is back to the hospital to check if the illness came back to re-visit him again.

When I heard that from my FIL, I was shocked. Tuberculosis is a highly variable communicable disease, how could the hospital allow him to stay in such ‘normal’ wards?! Anyhow, the moment we knew about this, my eldest BIL and SIL brought all the kids down to get some tibits, and kept them entertained with the nibbles for as long as they could.

I’m really unhappy with the ‘way’ this hospital handled certain things, especially towards my FIL. He can eat solids on his own without vomiting or getting choked, but they still put drips on him, causing him to have terrible water retention. His hands are like boxing gloves and legs are like baby elephants. Over the last 8 days in hospital, he has gained 10kg!!! – ALL WATER, as he hardly get to eat solid food till yesterday afternoon.

My frustrated MIL requested to get the drip off my FIL but was rejected. Their reasons were: “we still need to give him the antibiotics every 6 hourly, and we could only get it into the body through the drips…”NOW THAT’S SOMETHING NEW to me (at least).

We were all concerned, so we stayed longer than usual, but the 6 kids were getting impatient at the lobby. So I (the usual kids’ nanny for every Sunday’s family gathering at my parents-in-law house) went down and played quiet games with them, while the others continued to stay with my FIL.

We played the guess-which-finger-tapped-on-head game, count the number of cars passed by the drop-off point, count how many people wore a-particular-coloured top (this kept them entertained the longest, ‘cos all I need to do is just change the colour), count how many people carry a basket of flowers get into the lift and the usual scissors-paper-stone.

Of cos’ the un-unison toilet visits helped to kill much time off too. Before long, the adults were down and ready to leave. Keeping kids entertained is easy, but keeping kids entertained with their voices down is tough, when they are such easily-excitable-creatures….

What do you do to keep the kids’ volume down but at the same time making sure they are not bored? One rule to this question – no electronic hand-held games please….

So I guess, I’ll not be bringing my boys there till my FIL’s ‘new neighbour’ is discharged or relocated.

(Thank you all of your concerns, well-wishes and prayers, especially imbeingheldhostage, thank you for keeping my FIL in your prayers still)