Latest Pics of Sarah

Here's some latest pictures of Sarah, who's growing steadily day by day, now reaching 4.5kg.


Looking slightly more like a girl now.


Can use this as a passport photo :)


Always staring up at us when we carry her, like she's bewildered.


Taking a milk break.

It's an ongoing battle!

In the latest installment of the ongoing battle to claim as many as our children's body parts as looking most like our own, my wife and I have decided to look at the eyes and ears in particular. Since even with the hard evidence below, we still have our differing views, we'll let you decide.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Caleb's at the age where he is WATCHING us all the time. Watching and imitating. Before he turned two, I think he spent quite a far bit of his time trying to imitate me. He would do things like take my hairband and try to wear it or take a rubber band and try to tie his hair after seeing me do it. Well, I think after he turned two, he has taken to imitating Daddy a lot more than me. Perhaps he's associating with Daddy more now since he's getting very aware of gender differences between boys and girls. He'll say things to Daddy like "Daddy, boys wear pants and girls wear skirts right?" or he'll say "Daddy, girls must wear t-shirts on top when they go out right? but sometimes boys don't need right?"
So anyway, recently he's been saying and doing the strangest things. Ya, strange initially then upon reflection, we realise that he's actually imitating us.

On Chinese New Year's day morning, I was trying to dress him up to get ready to go visiting. He was jumping around and not cooperating so I put on my stern voice and said "CALEB!". He stared at me for a short while, stop jumping around and allowed me to dress him up and then he said to me... "Mummy, next time when I grow up and you do something wrong, I'll look at you and say MUMMY!" and he used the exact same tone that I had used on him!

Yesterday, he just came to me all of a sudden and pointed his index finger at me and said, "Mummy, this finger is for saying NO right?" I was dumbfounded for a moment then I realised that whenever he does something that he's not supposed to, we have a habit of pointing our index finger at him and telling him no. This is especially so with Daddy.

And then when I was playing with him in the living room and I said, "Caleb, come and play with me" and he said in a very nonchalant voice, "um... see how, maybe got no time." I thought for a moment and realised that that's what we say to him when he ask to play some more and if we're in a hurry or it's close to his bed time, we'll not commit to him and prepare him by telling him "maybe got no time".

A few days ago, I left Sarah by herself on my bed. Caleb, seeing that she's awake, went to her, put his hand some distance above her face and started wriggling his fingers and said, "Meimei, see my fingers." That's what Daddy does to buy some time with Sarah when she wants attention and he's busy with his work. He'll thrust out one hand and wriggle his fingers and Sarah will get distracted by his fingers for a while and just stare intently at them moving above her.
(Post qualification from Daddy... "I don't just wriggle my fingers in front of her lah. I do more educational stuff than that by slowly opening my fingers and counting from 1 to 5 at the same time, so she's actually learning how to count! Hehe.)

I reminded Daddy last night that we really got to watch what we say and do coz the children are watching us ALL the time.

Getting out of the house

Finally, over the weekend, everybody in the Lee family recovered and were well again. We decided that it was time for all of us to get out of the house coz we have all been cooped up at home for the past two months. First month coz I was doing confinement and second month coz Daddy and Caleb were sick. And after Caleb recovered from his illness, he was extremely cranky and unagreeable so we decided that bringing him out to get some fresh air and working off some energy would do him good.
So over the weekend we brought him out to Parkway to meet up with his Godma Jace for lunch. Godma Jace's back from the US for a week and thankfully we all recovered in time to catch up with her for a short while. Though he sees her only once a year, I was quite surprised that he took to her very well (especially since he had been very unagreeable the whole week!).
Here's a photo of Caleb with his Godma.


There's this gobo light thingy at Parkway where they project running images that are actually interactive. Caleb was obviously fascinated with it and joined in with the other children trying to step on the running images with his feet.


Here he is, looking much more agreeable after working out those pent up energy


On Sunday morning, Godma Jace was flying back to the US so off we went to T3 to send her off. Godma Jace got to carry Sarah for the first time coz she woke up from her nap when we reached the airport.


In the afternoon, after Caleb woke up from his nap, we brought him to East Coast Park with Grandpa to work out more of his energy. Recently he shot up in height by quite a bit and he's now able to reach the peddles of this Fisher Price tricycle which he inherited from Daddy's cousins. He absolutely loves this tricycle and keeps asking us for permission to bring his tricycle out to cycle.
See how he looks like he's rearing to go.


He's really quite good at riding his tricycle now and once he starts, we have to run to catch up with him. You can see how thrilled he is from the video.


He rode from Lagoon to Bedok jetty, took a break and rode all the way back again.
Here he is at the jetty. He told us that he's hanging from the monkey bar!


And here's little Sarah, out for some fresh air too. Though she's not old enough to join in the fun, but at least she got pushed around by me in her stroller.

Super Potent Virus

So, now that Caleb's on the road to recovery and when we think that things are finally going to settle down, Daddy woke up this morning with high fever. He couldn't sleep the whole night coz his stomach was churning. We saw the doc this morning and confirmed that Daddy has caught the same virus as Caleb.
This is a really super potent virus coz half of our family are down with it. It started with Yeeyee and Nic last Sunday, then Caleb caught it on Monday, then Ethan (Nic's "boyfriend" who was also at Yeeyee's house last Saturday) also came down with it on Tuesday, then Nat caught it on Thursday... and now, the latest victim is Daddy. Really scary huh!
I'm especially worried for Sarah coz she's barely 2 months old and from how Caleb, Nic and Nat reacted towards the virus, I think it'll be quite serious if Sarah comes down with it.
For the past week that Caleb's down with the virus, I've been getting everybody at home to wash their hands with soap after they finish interacting with Caleb and before they touch Sarah. I myself have been washing my hands like crazy, especially since I breastfeed Sarah. At the peak of Caleb's illness, I actually wore 2 sets of clothes coz I had to attend to both children concurrently. So I'll either feed or carry Sarah, and then Caleb would call for me, and then I'll change clothes, carry Caleb and comfort him and then Sarah would cry for me, and then I'll wash my hands and change again before I carry Sarah. Sounds a little paranoid to you? Well, on a normal day, I'll think I'm overdoing it... but seeing how many of our family members are down with the virus and how much discomfort they go through and how high the fever can go, and taking into account Sarah's age, I'll rather be a bit more cautious than put her at risk of catching the virus.
So, please keep the Lee family in prayer. For Daddy and Caleb to have a speedy and full recovery, and protection from the virus for me and Sarah.Thanks!

Hospital Stay - Part II

So here's photos of Caleb during his hospital stay.

For the children's ward, they get to sleep in little cots that kind of look like a cage, especially when all the barriers are pulled up.


Caleb was quite apprehensive about sleeping in the cot. It took him a while before he agreed to get into the cot to rest and we had to resort to playing games with him in the cot before he even agreed to lie down and place his head on the pillow.

When I arrived at the hospital on Sunday morning, I found Caleb sleeping on Daddy's bed instead. The hospital provided Daddy with a padded fold up bed so that he can stay overnight with Caleb.


And poor Daddy, was squashed up at the bottom half of the bed when Caleb wanted to share his bed.


Here's Caleb, all warmed up to his temporary bed.



When Caleb was first admitted, he was extremely cooperative with all the doctors, allowing them to listen to his lungs and breathing and examining his ears, his nose, his throat. He even allowed the nurses to prick his finger to draw blood. All was well until we reached the ward and the nurse who helped us to settle in wanted to put this machine on Caleb to monitor the amount of oxygen that he was getting. The nurse tried a little too hard to get it on him and from then on, we had a hard time trying to get him to let the nurses do swab tests and obtain other readings from him.
Here's Daddy doing a demo with the machine that got Caleb upset.


As with all children, after staying in the same ward for one, two days, Caleb made friends with the girl in the next bed. Her name's Linghui and she's the same age as him, just 3 months younger. By Monday morning, Caleb and Linghui were hanging out at each other's bed and chasing each other round the room.



Grandpa and Grandma bought Caleb a new transformers toy train which Caleb used to "impress" his new friend. He tried to show her what his train could do. Though outwardly she didn't appear to be too impressed, he must be doing something "right" coz she continued to hang out with him.


And to leave a lasting impression, Caleb asked Linghui's father for permission to pray for her to have a speedy recovery and that's that's what he did before we left the hospital.

Hospital Stay - Part I

KKH - That's where Caleb stayed over the weekend. He has hospitalised for Croup. For those of you who have not heard of Croup, (according to the KKH website) it's a viral infection of the vocal cords, voice box and windpipe. It is usually part of a cold. Swelling of the vocal cords cause hoarseness. All children with croup have a tight, low pitched "barking" cough.
So it all started with our dear Yeeyee inviting our family over to her house last Saturday to celebrate CNY. We had lots to eat and the children had a lot of fun. However, the next day, Yeeyee called and said that Nic's down with fever, a bad throat and stomachache and asked me to check on Caleb. She too could feel the onset of a sore throat and her stomach was churning. Well, I checked Caleb for fever, he was ok on Sunday but on Monday afternoon, he started running a fever that was about 38.5 degrees. He complained that his throat hurt slightly and he had a stomachache and diarrhoea. We brought him to the GP who said that he had wind in his stomach and his throat was slightly red so he gave him some medicine for wind and diarrhoea but nothing for his throat coz it looked like it was recovering. Well, over the next few days, Caleb's fever went up and down but most of the time it was averaging 38.5 degrees.
On Thursday Caleb's throat starting sounding worse and he was looking lethargic and still feverish. We decided to bring him to the pd on Friday morning to seek a second opinion. Caleb's pd diagnosed him to have the same viral throat infection as Nic and gave more medicine for Caleb to take. However on Friday afternoon, Caleb's condition continued to worsened. He took a nap and when he woke up, he looked really bad, he was really cranky and upset and when we took his temperature, we realised that it had gone up to 39.8 degrees. We managed to bring it down after giving him more fever medicine and soaking him in the tub.
Friday night was the worst for us coz by then Caleb appeared to be in a lot of pain. He was crying all the time, he couldn't sleep and kept clutching his throat and telling us that it was very painful. We could tell that he was very tired and in such great discomfort. His voice was hoarse too and he had this loud, hollow cough and his breathing was very noisy. Other than carrying him around and giving him as much water as he could take, me and Daddy really didn't know what else to do. We felt quite helpless and a great deal of heartache seeing him in pain. Well, I did give our pd a call at night coz I was worried that he had developed bronchitis coz he was breathing so noisily. Pd was quite shocked to see how fast his condition deteriorated and told us to bring him to see her again in the morning and advised us that if he had difficulty breathing, we have to bring him to A&E.
Well, we got through the night (it was really long and tiring) and when Daddy brought Caleb to see PD in the morning, she checked and said his lungs were clear (so no bronchitis) but he seemed to have trouble breathing so she sent him to take an xray of his throat and lungs. The xray revealed that there was a tissue in his throat that was swollen and it caused his airway to narrow and he was breathing noisily coz he's actually having difficulty breathing properly. Me and Daddy were really clueless that our son was having difficulty breathing and all this while we thought he was wheezing. Anyway, she advised that we go to A&E immediately and said that he will probably have to be hospitalised coz if his throat infection continue to worsen and his throat tissue continues to swell, it might block his airway completely and cause him to suffocate. This would be fatal if it happens at home.
So off we went to KKH and after seeing about 2 docs, we were admitted. We were later seen by more docs and finally the senior pediatric consultant came and diagnosed him with Croup. And so Caleb had to stay in hospital till his fever came down and show signs that he could breath normally. By the way, this is not the first time that Caleb has Croup. He caught it in Dec but somehow the symptoms seemed slightly different and he recovered very quickly. All the docs that saw him agree that the symptoms that he displayed were not classic Croup symptoms so it was harder to diagnose.
Well, after staying in hospital for 3 days, Caleb got discharged this afternoon. His fever is gone and he's breathing normally now. He's on the road to recovery and just has a slight cough and running nose.
Upon reflection, I'm thankful for a couple of things:
1) That God saw us through and watched over us. I thank God that although Caleb had such clueless parents who did not recognise that their son was having difficulty breathing, His hand of protection was over us and saw us through especially that tough Friday night.
2) For Daddy. Daddy has been extremely patient and "paternal" towards Caleb. When Caleb fell sick, we had to separate Sarah and Caleb to make sure that Sarah doesn't catch the virus. Since I'm Sarah's milk machine, naturally I had to focus on Sarah while Daddy focussed his attention on Caleb. So Daddy was the one bringing Caleb to all his doctor visits and Daddy stayed over in the hospital with Caleb. Caleb has been very cranky and unagreeable the whole week but Daddy has done an excellent job managing and caring for him.
3) For Grandpa, Grandma and Chek Chek. Grandpa and Grandma have been very supportive and took turns to stay at home with Sarah whenever I had to rush down to the hospital to spend time with Caleb. And they also took time to visit and occupy Caleb, and gave me and Daddy a little timeoff to rest and recharge. Well, Chek Chek did what he was good at... chauffeuring Grandma and Grandpa around :p
5) Family and Friends. We had many family and friends who visited us at the hospital, prayed for us, checked on us everyday on Caleb's progress. I'm thankful for the concern and encouragement that we received.
4) I'm also thankful that what Caleb has is just a one off infection and that he can recover fully. I felt really helpless and a great deal of heartache watching Caleb suffer in pain and discomfort over the last few days. And it was very difficult for us to manage Caleb when the doctors or nurses tried to draw blood from him, hook machines on him and examine him. I cannot imagine what it is like for parents with children who suffer from chronic illnesses. It must be really tough for them emotionally to watch their children suffer and physically draining to care for them.

Enough of the heavy stuff... tomorrow... when we have the time... we shall post up Caleb's hospital photos!

More Pictures

Here's our first few attempts at taking photos of Caleb & Sarah






And here's one which we attempted to take on our own.

The Pouty Lips Post

Don't ask me why, but from the day that my children are born, they like to pout their lips all the time and they do it in such a way that their mouth looks extremely small. I remember on the second day that Caleb was born, I was carrying him and he was pouting his lips and it was so small that I could barely see his mouth. We were really amused when we saw that Sarah shared the same traits as her kor kor. So here's a post dedicated to their pouty lips.

Caleb's pouty lips look when he was about 2 months old




Sarah's pouty lips look now at one and a half months

Sarah... or... Caleb?

Who's that in the photo? Sarah or Caleb? You decide....


We were looking at this photo and were amazed at how when our children close their eyes and put on the Lee family frown, they are the spitting images of each other. I'm sure 20 years down the road, we'll all be arguing about who that is in the photo.

For those of you who are still not sure... well, that's Sarah. Honestly if you show me and Daddy the photo just like that, we'll tell you that is Caleb coz it looks really like Caleb! Even Caleb himself said that it was him in the photo and not Sarah.

Kong Fu Master!

Over the Chinese New Year period, I remembered that Caleb has this Kungfu suit that Marisa and Celisa from church bought for him many many months ago. It was too big for him then so I had kept it aside. Well when I took it out to let him try, it fitted him perfectly. Only thing was he didn't want us to button up right to the top, but still he looked really cute and suave in the kungfu suit. Check out his kungfu moves that he happily posed for us.



See my huge muscles...


Happy Lunar New Year everyone!


From Caleb... The Kungfu Master

Tekan Session

Tekan, the colloquial term for bully, is typically used when bigger sized individuals or persons in power, bully those who are smaller and weaker. Last night, I had an experience which puts doubt to this definition as the exact opposite happened, for it was a small, docile dainty looking little baby who tekan-ed me and the helper who is with our family, for two full hours.

Dainty little Sarah, who rarely goes beyond a whimper, shattered all family decibel records which prompted swift action from us to close all windows for fear of neighbours knocking at our doors. You see, the mummy had gone out for some last minute CNY shopping, and had left the boy AND the girl in the good hands of the daddy.

All was well, for a full 15 minutes after mummy left, with daddy getting the boy into bed, giving him his milk and praying with him, while the girl lay on her rocker, quietly planning her tekan plan.

And then she launched her plan.

Slowly escalating her cries, we were quick to react to the initial onslaught by whipping out the arsenal (milk), warming it, and giving it to her. That have us 15 minutes of respite.

After the feed, she launched the 2nd attack, building up on her 1st decibel level by 20%. This time, it was countered with the burping position, but to no avail. Her attack continued even after she burped. Changing tactics, amidst fear of possible stomachache, ruyiyou (soothing oil) was applied on her. That seemed to calm her down for about 10 minutes, and our camp was happy to note that it must just have been discomfort at the tummy and the onslaught had been promptly quashed. However, she came back even stronger, clearly buoyed by the short rest she had and broke the standing famiLEE decibel records held by her older brother.

By now, our helper and I were pulling out all the rabbits out of the hat. Cross-cradle, stomach-to-stomach, one-handed, rocking, upright-backfacing, upright-frontfacing. We have also come to the conclusion that it was neither a case of wanting milk nor discomfort, but a natural longing for her biggest love... Mummy. And so, with that realisation, we even tried putting her on mummy's pillow, hoping the mere smell of her love will soothe her, but to no avail.

Needless to say, with she getting all the attention, her brother decided to get into the act too, by wanting to go wee-wee, by weeping too (saying that he was afraid mei-mei's stomachache will be too painful for her, sweet boy), asking for mummy etc. I had to exercise extreme calmness and patience, amidst the all-time-high decibel levels, to address these one by one. Sometimes, I can't even hear the boy even if I'm just standing next to his bed, with the girl fully exercising her lungs in my arms.

Well, that went on for about 2 hours before I finally stumbled on a position which she seemed satisfied with, which is carrying her upright, stomach to my chest, chin on my shoulders AND (check this out) my face must be touching her face. She settled down for about 5 minutes, just as mummy came back (hallelujah!). It was then that we realised that mummy always carries her in that same position soothing her and putting her to sleep at nights. (See, that's what you miss when you need to go back to reservist for 2 weeks).

I thank God that He had built up a rather deep patience reservoir within me over the past few years and opportunities like this to bond with Sarah. We've clearly understood each other much better after last night and while I have learnt new ways to handle her, she too would know that if mummy is not around, settling for daddy isn't that bad after all, even though it might be a more bony ride.

Just to round up the post, here's a latest pic of Sarah for you to try to imagine her pulling out her stunts.