Now that Yee Yee's maternity leave is over, we have less excuses for going out Everyday and are staying indoors a bit more. And it certainly doesn't help much that there is the haze, and that Caleb has fallen sick. So now, Mummy has to think of more activities to entertain and expand Caleb's energy indoors instead of outdoors. There are days where I run out of ideas of what to do with Caleb and there are days where I feel more spontaneous and creative and have more fun activities with Caleb. And there are days when Caleb is plonked in front of the TV for a short while, watching Hi-5 or Barney or Baby Enstein. Or sometimes, Caleb will entertain himself by riding on his scooter round the house.
Here's Caleb riding around on his scooter. Recently he likes to verbalise his actions so when he hits something, he will make the sound "bong" and when he turns around, he'll say "back".
As for him falling sick, Nicole jiejie caught some virus at school. We visited meimei while Nicole jiejie was away from home but Caleb still caught the bug. (Yeeyee claims that the bug did not come from Nicole but the haze. We beg to differ coz now Meimei is also sick and all 3 kids have got the same symptoms!) Anyway for the last three days, Caleb has been down with fever and a bad throat. Thankfully he's still active and eating well and only gets cranky when it's time for him to rest or at night when he can't sleep well coz of his bad throat. We saw the doc today and she said that his throat is very red and sore and warned us that it may get worse. And depending on the virus, sometimes it may travel down to the lungs and develop into Bronchitis. Obviously we're praying that he'll get better and Mummy's trying really hard to give him lots of water to drink!
One thing we realised is that Caleb still doesn't understand what it means to be sick. We tried explaining to him that he's sick and should rest more and eat medicine but he doesn't seem to understand and will just stare or knit his eye brows in deep thought. And the other thing is that he Hates letting the doctor examine. The minute the doctor tries to examine him, he'll start screaming and wailing and it'll take many pairs of hands to try to hold him down. He probably scared all the children outside thinking there's one nasty doc in the room. And the doc that we went to today was very patient with him and tried to humour him with toys and sweets but he would have none of that and kept screaming "NO!NO!NO!".
The last time that I "bravely" brought him to the doc on my own, he refused to let the doc examine him and was wailing and pointing to the door and screaming "OUT! OUT! OUT!" for at least 5min. The poor doc had to raise his voice to try to explain to me what was wrong with him and how I should care for him amidst all his screaming. The minute I said ok, we're done and leaving, his tears automatically stopped and he cheerfully waved and said bye bye to the doc as though nothing happened.
Oh, and if you ask him about the doctor, he'll say "poke, poke" and poke himself. We brought him for his MMR jab two weeks ago. The last time he had a jab was about half a year ago and he was less aware of what was happening and a much, more pleasant kid in front of the doc. So I thought that I should prepare him by talking to him about it. Two days before the jab, I told him that we're going to the doc's and the doc is going to give him an injection, which means poking him at his backside. I reinforced by asking him "when we go to the doctor, what is the doctor going to do?". He'll say "poke, poke" and poke himself with his finger. And I'll ask him "poke where?" he'll laugh and point to his backside. Well, the that visit was not too bad coz Daddy was there to help hold him down. I distracted him by pretending to play "superman" with him on the doctor's bench! (yah, the things parents do!) He wailed when the needle went in but only for 5seconds and said "No! No!" once the injection was done, he was ok and smiling again.
Well, but me and Daddy today were thinking how can we get him to be more cooperative for future doctor visits and we thought maybe we should get him a doctor playset for him to get used to the idea. Or maybe Godpa should come over and play "doctor" with him (Ha! and maybe risk Caleb not wanting to go near him after that!)
