The SickLee Men

The men in the Lee household are sick (physically of course...) Yah, Caleb got really cranky a couple of days ago and didn't have any appetite and had a very slight temperature. It was then that I realised that he had lots of ulcers on his lower lip and on his tongue. The poor boy was in so much pain. He had like 4 small ulcers at the tip of his tongue and many more at the top of his lower lip. I had to boil porridge and make it so watery and slowly scoop them into his mouth for two days. Broke my heart to do that. Felt really sorry for him and so scared that he'll lose more of his fats (which I love!) Anyway, he seems much better already. I brought him to the doc and she said that it's too early for her to diagnose. She guessed that it could be oral thrush but yet, it didn't look like it coz he didn't have any ulcers on the inside of his cheeks. It could be herpes (which according to her is a very common amongst children) but if it was herpes, he'll probably be running a very high fever, have swollen and bleeding gums. So she sent us home and got me to observe him further. Thankfully, Caleb haven't been having any fever, no swollen gums and his appetite is returning. The only thing though is that he broke out into a full body rash yesterday (which sometimes children do get after they get a bout of fever). The rash subsided today so I'm still observing him. My guess is that maybe he got the ulcers coz I bought him a new toothbrush and he insisted on brushing his teeth himself and he brushed it too hard and gave himself lots of ulcers which subsequently got infected coz he picked up stuff from the floor to put into his mouth. Sounds a little far fetched? I dunno lah, I'm just praying that my little boy will be ok.

And Daddy, poor daddy has been down with a persistent fever since Sat afternoon. He's literally lying in bed the whole day and can hardly get out of bed. When he gets up, he feels weak, want to faint, no appetite, headache, body ache, chest pain...and his throat hurts. We saw doc today and he said it's probably a viral infection and he gave Daddy some fever medicine and told him to go back if the fever persists past five days. Well, Daddy's fever seemed to have come down a little this evening so we're praying that it's the road to recovery.

As for me... gosh, it has been tiring and trying at times trying to keep the house in order and look after the two boys and separate them in our little home. If Daddy is in the living room, I'll try to keep Caleb in the bedroom and vice versa. I think Caleb misses Daddy quite a bit and doesn't quite understand why Daddy has not been carrying him and not going near him. We just keep telling him that Daddy is sick and needs to rest. He'll look at Daddy and tell me "Daddy sleep... sleep". Just now, when I was trying to put him to sleep, he started to demand to see and talk to Daddy who was resting in the living room. He kept telling me "I want.. see Daddy. See! I want... talk Daddy... talk Daddy!"

My little Caleb... Daddy misses you too... he'll play and carry you again when he's well again ok?

A little addendum from Daddy : The boy is so sweet lah. He'll come up to me, say "Daddy sick, daddy sleep, pat pat." Then he'll give me a few pats as though he was putting me to sleep. Such a sweet boy.

At the beach

We've been trying to get Caleb to walk on sand, (something which he has been very reluctant to do) so we brought him to the beach.
See how cautious he is standing on the sand. It took him a couple of minutes before he would move his legs and walk confidently.


After he warmed up a little more, we persuaded him to touch the sand with his hands


And then, he got a little more confident. He started lifting the sand and letting them run through his hand.


And... he decided that he could actually create a little mountain by heaping the sand together


And hey, what do you know? Other than the hands, you can use your legs too!


And then... how about throwing the sand instead of watching them fall through your fingers?

Oh, and do you know, you can use your shoes to scoop up sand too?


Well, after a while, Caleb got a lot more adventurous and started trying out all kinds of stunts with the sand. See his different poses.


We went home with a very sandy boy after that. He had sand in his hair, on his arms, legs and butt. He definitely had fun coz over the last week or so, from time to time, he'll start to bug me and say "I want... play sand!"

The Sua Kus!

The Sua Kus were given time off this afternoon by the Boss. The Boss was being entertained by some VIPs (aka Grandpa, Grandma and Chek Chek), so he did not need the Sua kus around. Elated, the Sua Kus decided to go to Plaza Sing to hangout and be Cool and Happening... The Sua Kus chanced upon an arcade and started to reminisce about the time when they were King and Queen of arcade games. They confidently strolled in and Sua Ku Daddy stopped short and said "Wah! now they got games like that ah??!! Got a lot of new games hor.."

The Sua Kus being confident, changed just $2 thinking it'll last them a long time. They headed for a Picture Puzzle machine and slotted $1 coin in with style. They very excitedly went through the list of games and finally settled on one. But no matter what they pressed, the game just refused to start. After a few tries, they decided to get their coin back and move to the next machine.

Well, the next machine was worse! It ate up the coin and again refused to let the Sua Kus play no matter what they pressed. Meanwhile, a bunch of hippies had settled themselves on the machine the Sua Kus had abandoned. They slotted in their coin easily and started playing the same game that the Sua Kus chose. Refusing to give up, the Sua Kus stayed on for a few more minutes, pressing all kinds of buttons, finally giving up, but not without letting out a few embarrasment-covering grunts.

With confidence slightly dented, they decided to stick to an old-trusted game, one which had previously provided hours of enjoyment on a low budget. The $1 coin was once again slotted in confidently and the game started easily (phew, what a relief!). The game must have been upgraded since the last time they played it, cos it seemed faster and more difficult to get through the stages. The Sua Kus lasted a glorious 4 stages, out of which they failed 3! They decided after that that actually watching other people play was a lot more fun than playing. Also, somehow, $2 seemed a lot more to them nowadays than before, so they decided to cut their losses and move on to explore the rest of Plaza Sing.

See the Sua Kus' reaction. There were a lot of exclamations like "wah, that's new leh", "wah, can self service to buy movie tickets ah" and "eh, they got link to MRT leh".

Quotes from the Sua Kus after the outing...

- "I'm glad I can openly declare my "sua-kuness" in front of you because you are as sua ku as me!"


- "Now I fully understand when people talk about having generation gap with their parents!"

The Yawn Series

Caleb has been practising saying "yawning" every time he sees us yawn and now he's practising yawning whilst riding a bike at Ma-ma's place. Talk about driving when you're tired!





Looking very satisfied with himself. Must have had a good yawn.

Caleb in the morning

Here's my little boy lazing around his cot with Barney after waking up in the morning.

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The Boss Dictator

Now that Caleb can say a lot more things, he has been explicitly dictating what he wants and verbalising his actions.. sometimes, even my actions are verbalised.
This happened yesterday morning.

Mummy: (Zzzz.....sleeping away)
Caleb: (shaking Mummy's arms real hard and talking to my ear) Drink milk.... drink milk... drink milk.. NOW!
Mummy: Ok.. ok... (no choice since he's very persistent)
Caleb: Down! (lets himself down my bed and runs to the door, points at it and gives his command) Open!
Mummy: (obediently... opens door)
Caleb: (stretches out his arms) bao bao
Mummy: (picks Caleb up, prepares milk bottle and pours in luke warm water)
Caleb: (points to the hot water flask) Erh! (ya, like Mummy will forget to pour in hot water...)
Mummy: (pours in hot water and starts scooping in milk powder)
Caleb: two.. three...four
Mummy: (he's counting the number of scoops of milk powder I pour in to make sure I get it right.)
Caleb: Down!
Mummy: (once I'm done preparing the milk, he'll want me to put him down and he'll run to my bed)
Caleb: Up!
Mummy: (ya and I got to help him to climb up my bed)
Caleb: (Walks about my bed and jumps into his cot and loses his balance a little) Whoaaa.... (gives dramatic sound effect and grins at me. Knocks Barney off my bed in the process.) Bar-nee fall down... (Picks Barney up and places Barney on my pillow) Bar-nee.. sit..sit. (proceeds to lie down on his pillow) Sleep...sleep... (he always says that when he lies down to drink milk on his bed) Take... the bottle...
Mummy: (obediently passing the boss his milk bottle. I sit there and stare at the boss and stifle a yawn since I've barely woken up.)
Caleb: (takes out bottle from his mouth and points at me) Yawning....

I sit there staring at the boss and thinking... ya, that's how I start my day. I have a boss who dictates his wants and needs and will not fail to point out all my actions whether they are good or bad. He's watching me every minute and especially recently, refuses to let me out of his sight. He wants me with him 24/7. He wants to know where I'm going, what I'm doing. I even have to tell him when I go to the toilet and he'll either give his nod of approval or wail and insist on joining me. When he wants to play, I have to play. When he wants to read, I have to read. When he wants to sleep, I have to put him to sleep. I cook, wash, clean for him. And he has never agreed to giving me a day off and you can forget about taking MC. Tough job huh!

C.A.L.E.B

Here's my first attempt at teaching Caleb how to spell his name. I was surprised that he was willing to spell along with me coz I've not really taught him any of the alphabets.
Anyway, from his reaction, I don't think he'll be the kind of student who would sit quietly in class and do everything the teacher says. Hopefully I don't get called up to see the teacher from time to time (something which Daddy claims happened to him quite often as a child!). Or maybe if that happens, I'll just tell Daddy to see the teacher himself since Caleb inherited his naughty genes!

Hair Cut

As Cherie has commented, Caleb's hair has been getting quite long and starting to look unkempt and giving him heat rash round his neck. Previously Ma-ma would try to trim his hair whenever she can but she's been busy recently so Mummy has taken over the task of trimming his hair. I must say that I'm no hairdresser so I've been finding that an extremely difficult task and it doesn't help that Caleb gets really upset whenever we try to cut his hair.
I talked to Caleb about cutting his hair one day when he was in a very agreeable mood and got him to agree to sit down in the toilet for me to trim his hair. I didn't get pass two snips before he started protesting and squirming away.
See my attempt with Caleb in the toilet.


Later that day, I attempted to trim his fringe when he was sleeping soundly. That's the only time when I can touch his hair. Unfortunately it didn't turn out to be what I expected and Caleb ended up with a very slanted fringe.


I gave up trying to cut his hair myself and we decided we needed to get professional help.
Here's Caleb at Junior Leagues before his turn to cut hair. He's looking very apprehensive as he watched the other children get their hair cut.


And here's Caleb during the haircut. He was the only child wailing away. We were too busy holding him down to see how the other children were reacting to him. The lady cutting his hair was quite flustered by him though coz he was REALLY LOUD! He started with screaming "NO!NO!" but we were holding him down, so in the end he just sat in my arms and cried through the whole haircut. He cried as though we were all beating him up with very big tears streaming down his face. Very poor thing ah!


After the hairdresser finished with his hair, we had to take a few minutes to calm him down and assure him that his "ordeal" is over. We changed his clothes and the hairdresser offered him some sweets to hold (he only gets to hold on to the sweets coz I'm not really to introduce sweets to him yet!) and before we know it, he's back to his usual self again.
Here's Caleb outside the salon just after his haircut. He was attempting to go back into the salon to get more sweets to hold.


Although he didn't come out looking like a superstar but we're still quite pleased with his haircut coz the hairdresser cut it pretty short (which means it'll be a while more before we need to cut his hair again!)