Where It All Started...

3 weeks ago, we accompanied Kimi's family to Chinatown to 赏花灯 (look at the CNY decorations). It was a Monday night and the decorations had just gone up and so was the night bazaar so we thought that it shouldn't be too crowded and would be fun for the kids to enjoy the festivities.

We started our "date" by meeting at people's park hawker center to eat dinner. I was craving to eat the famous guo tie and steamed dumplings at one of the stalls. Unfortunately, their standard seemed to have dropped tremendously so dinner was quite a disappointment.

The stallholders at the hawker center seemed pretty fond of kids and many of them gave our kids sweets. Here's Sarah holding a packet of jelly in her hands. Can't really see it very well in the photo but it's the tiny blue packet in her hands. Well, she only held on to it but unknown to her, her Kor kor spied it and "schemed" to eat it up the next day.


Some other stall holder gave Caleb and Kimi some hacks sweet. We told them it was spicy but they insisted they wanted to eat it. So we let them try it and Kimi spat it out after 10s. Caleb (the more deprived one) kept telling us that it was spicy but refused to spit it out. He lasted for 3min before he couldn't take it anymore and spat it out too.


Kimi and Caleb and the daddies, very enthusiastic at the start of our journey


Though it was a Monday night, the streets were still quite busy and there was a considerable number of people at the bazaar. We had to try to follow each other closely so that we don't get lost in the crowd.


The kiddos walking together, hand-in-hand.


Sampling some really delicious braised mushrooms that the stall holders were selling.


The younger 2 kiddos. They're still at the age where they're not too interested in each other's company so Ian and Sarah were mostly stuck with us adults.


Sarah taking in the sights in a rather unglam manner and squashing her jelly as we push her along. It was actually a mistake for us to bring the stroller along coz of the crowd and the narrow streets. Probably would have been easier if we had carried her.


There was really quite a fair bit of things to see...

New Year decorations...


Flowers...


Clothes... Btw, I've come to realise that it's slightly cheaper to buy such clothes from Chinatown than elsewhere. I saw this pair of cheongsam that yeeyee bought for her girls at the bazaar. It was cheaper by a couple of dollars. Prob coz there's competition amongst the stalls.


Pomelos


Golden pumkins...


Caleb was really enjoying himself quite a fair bit and was busy touching the stuff and posing for photos...


Hello Amigo...


Monkey pose by the five foot way


He actually asked if it was alright for him to sit on the floor to pose...


Parting shot before we called it a night


And you must be wondering why I titled my post "Where it all started...", ya, coz this is where we think our HFMD saga started. That's our conclusion coz we only met Ian on Monday night and on Sunday when Caleb was confirmed with HFMD and I informed Ian's mummy, she called me and told me that she suspects Ian's down with HFMD too coz he too was having a fever and had rashes on his feet. Well, he really caught it as well so probably this is where it all started. Ian's family's luckier than us coz only Ian caught it. Familee's casualty rate's much much higher. Other than Caleb and Sarah, I caught it too. Thankfully it's past 1 week so I've recovered too but it sure wasn't fun.

During the CNY holidays, yeeyee who was "extremely" sympathetic, "reported" to me that she informed all my aunties and cousins that my entire family's down with HFMD and they were all shocked that I could catch it. Apparently two of my cousins who are nurses said that it's really not common for adults to catch it. However, I have also had my own discovery that though it's not common, it's not impossible as well. Yeeyee had 2 other friends who told her that they caught it as adults too so I'm not the only "weirdo" around. But, I'm probably the only one who's caught it so many times! Once every decade! Perhaps I can enter myself into the guiness book of records!

Oh, and my dear, dear sister, very kindly reminded me that the very first time I caught HFMD, I went to the doc and he told me that HFMD is actually a virus that comes from the chickens and the pigs. (Obviously yee yee and gu gu had a good laugh then when they heard!) Ya, but who can blame me for catching it once again when I've got them both at home with me! (Caleb's born in the year of the chicken and Sarah's born in the year of the pig)

So well, I hope this will be the end of our HFMD saga... dare I say, forever....

Gung Ho Sarah

We have blogged before that Sarah is somewhat more independent than Caleb was at the same age. She will go off on her own, find her own things to play, and try out gung-ho stuff while Caleb would be more tentative. At 1.5 yrs old, Caleb did quite a boy thing, you can see it again here. Now, check this out from Sarah, at 1 yrs and 1 month.

"Hmm... I hope no one sees me..."


"Oops, Daddy saw me... Hullo!"


"I will still try nevertheless... as Kor Kor always says... you never try you never know!"


"Ta-da! I'm almost there!"


"Ok, slowly does it, balance is the key!"


"Yippee! Now I can ride around just like kor kor... if only I had longer legs."


The first time I saw her do it, my heart was in my mouth. When I told Mummy about it, apparently Sarah has already been doing it a few times! What can I say, she has an independent fearless mind, a will of her own. In fact, we just coined a new nickname for her..."任我行".

HFMD Attack! - Part 3

You've read from Wifey's post that we had to separate the children prior to Sarah also catching the bug. Most of the time, Caleb would be in the living room, playing with grandpa while the girl gets confined to the room, playing with grandma.

Here's a pic of grandma innovatively playing with her games in her cot.


Some other pics of her playing on the bed... where most of her playing time is.


When she does get her once-in-a-while freedom to wander to the living room, she makes full use of the opportunity. Here's her pretending that she's going shopping, complete with "handbag", nice dress and all :)


And of course, her classic pout...


And all these while, while the girl is out in the living room, the boy gets the sofa, and only the sofa :)


You can see that Caleb is drinking water... that's the one thing we constantly did ... to make sure the children drink lots of water. Again and again, we offer water to them, keep them hydrated and relieve the dryness and pain from their ulcers.

HFMD Attack! - Part 2

There's a part 2 to this entry coz today Sarah got diagnosed with HFMD as well. She started a slight fever yesterday and we started seeing the blisters this morning. So we brought her to the doc and got it confirmed. I guess we separated the two of them a little too late and she probably caught the virus last Sat or perhaps it was that fateful toy exchange on Sun morning.
Oh well, we did what we could. At the very least, we no longer need to separate the children. That's the good news since we were going a bit mad being constantly confined in the room and trying to stop the children from interacting. And the even better news is that I don't have to disinfect all the toys that Caleb played with once he's well coz once he recovers, he'll have immunity and won't get it again, unless it's a different strain. So... we'll continue to press on with this quarantine biz for another week till Sarah's fully recovered too! Pls pray for the kids to have a speedy recovery and for the adults to not fall sick.

Btw, from what I know, adults typically do not get infected with HFMD. They typically affect toddlers to adolescent age. I say typically coz I've gotten HFMD before myself, not once but TWICE. Once when I was about 15 and another time when I was in my early 20s. Both times, Doc said it was really very rare that I caught it. Rare or not, I'm not keen to get it again now that I've hit my 30s. Twice is more than enough! So, pls pray for us. Thanks!

HFMD Attack!

Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease - one of the most dreaded diagnosis a parent with little toddlers would like to hear. But unfortunately, it has hit the Lee household.

It started with Caleb having a slight fever last Sat. It came and went and he was still very active and upbeat so I didn't think much about it. He complained that his throat hurts a little and I thought it was because we had a late night at cg the night before. He was going wild with Megan and Kimi in Aunty Amy's house and before that he was having a whale of a time playing with Nic and Nat during dinner time. And I indulged in him and let him eat one chocolate chip cookie that Cherie had baked just before bedtime. (Yes, Cherie, your cookies!) So, I thought, with a late night, lots of screaming and running wild with all his gfs and chocolate chip cookie with not enough water, I'm not very surprised that he has a sore throat.

Nevertheless, I told Daddy that we'll bring him to the doc on Sun, even though his fever only lasted for a day, coz Daddy was scheduled to fly to hanoi on Monday for a biz trip for 5 days. I really wasn't keen to be left alone with 1 sickly kid(Caleb) and 1 clingy one(Sarah) for 5 days. Note that this is a few days after we let our helper go, so lots of adjustments for me! Then, at the doc's, I couldn't believe my ears when the doc said it's HFMD. She showed me his throat and I saw there were lots of little red blisters at the back of his throat and one big white ulcer forming. Then we examined his hands and feet and saw one or two little red dots here and there.

According to doc, it takes about 4 days for the symptoms to surface so for the past 4 days, my dear son has been a carrier of the virus! I was told to observe Sarah and keep her away from Caleb. To prevent her from catching the virus, they must not share toys or food and each time after I finish handling Caleb, I have to wash my hands before touching Sarah. My heart kind of sank a little coz just before we reached the doc's place, Caleb and Sarah were lovingly exchanging toys and Sarah promptly stuck her newly exchanged toy into her mouth! Whatever it is, I decided that we were in a state of emergency at home and needed a game plan immediately! Btw, to put across the point of how contagious Caleb appears to be, the min he got off the doc's chair, the nurse wiped it clean. Then we were both urshered into a separate waiting room and Caleb was provided with a designated stool to sit on till I paid up.

First thing I did, was inform all the parents of the the girls that Caleb played with on Friday to tell them to observe their kids. Then me and Daddy discussed how we should cope with the current situation. Our lifeline was Grandpa and Grandma so after a short discussion, we decided that Grandpa would come and stay with us for 3 days and Daddy would cut short his trip to 3 days and come back on Wed. Meantime, we split into the guys team and the girls team. Whoever's on the guys team cannot touch or go too near the girls team. The guys had the living room and our spare room to roam while the girls had our bedroom and kitchen.

That Sunday, me and Daddy did a major cleanup of the house and I proceeded to disinfect a box of toys for Sarah to play in the bedroom. We really weren't sure whether Sarah's caught the bug so we decided to take all precautions since she seemed perfectly healthy. We also had in mind CNY being round the corner. Caleb's due for a review on Sat to certify that he's fully recovered. (We need a letter from doc so that he can get back to school). If Sarah catches the bug, well, there goes our CNY...

On Monday morning, Grandpa arrived at our house with his overnight bag and so we started our days of being quarantined. Grandpa and Caleb would play outside. Me and Sarah played in the bedroom. I'll carry Sarah out to the living during meal times and after that, it's back into the bedroom we go. I don't even allow her to walk on our living room floor coz according to doc, once Caleb's blisters burst, he's super contagious and he's got a couple of blisters on his feet. And yes, I did mop our floor with disinfectant too when everybody was asleep! I told Daddy I've never cleaned and washed so much in my entire life. Caleb's cutleries have been set aside with his own sponge and all. He has an allocated seat at the dining table and he's been told countless of times that he can't come near Mummy. Ok, that's the hardest part, for me at least and I guess for him as well. He's always very affectionate towards me. In recent months, he tells me he loves me almost everyday and he likes to hug me. On Sunday evening, he ran to me very excitedly wanting to tell me something. I hastily reminded him that he can't come too close to me. He stopped short for a moment, then his face crumbled and he started brawling very loudly. Really broke my heart. I think I hurt his feelings and Daddy had to come along and sayang him a bit.

Anyway, I was reminded that I'm not alone in this coz other than family support, God was also there for us. See, Daddy left at 8am to catch his flight on Monday morning. Then at 9am, he called me and said he can't get on his flight. His passport has less than 6 months of validity left and the airline didn't let him board. So, he had to go to ICA to renew his passport and the earliest he could get it back was Wed. Daddy then made alternative arrangements to try to fly on Thursday but his Vietnamese colleague told him that maybe he should fly only after CNY coz they are going to celebrate CNY so probably won't work much from Thursday onwards. I was really soo soo thankful. God knows we really need Daddy around at a time like this. Though he's not flying, he still got to go to work but there's more flexibility and he's around at night. So thank God for that!

FamiLee Wall of Frame

We've had this wall in our house painted a different colour since we first renovated it, for the purpose of it being like a art gallery wall, with photos of our family slowly lining up the wall.

It's been almost 6 years since we first shifted in.

Finally we have something up. Wife did a fantastic job putting the frames up and if you zoom in, you might recognise some of the photos (they may have been posted up before).

So here it is... our Wall of Frame (so far...).

Sarah Turns 1!

This is my belated post on Sarah turning 1. It has been a while since I blogged about her milestones and what she's been up to. The last time I blogged about her milestones was when she turned 10 months. So here goes...

Well, one week before she turned 11 months, she stood up on her own for the first time. We were in the "cry" room in church and service had just ended. I was busy helping to keep toys when Daddy said,"Look, she's standing up on her on and she did it 3 times consecutively." Well, my back was facing Sarah so I didn't see it at all and Daddy only called me after the fact. Anyway, that was that. Then, on the day Sarah turned 11 months, I was out and I got an sms from Daddy saying that Sarah took 5 steps on her own when they were in the living room. Yup, Daddy's the lucky one who got to see Sarah taking her first steps. Ever since then, Sarah's been toddling around. She's getting steadier by the day and she walks round the house half the time now.

In the area of communications, she's making some progress. For a period of time, she experimented with sounds like da-da, ba-ba, pa-pa. When she was about 11 months, I was playing a ball with her and all of a sudden she said, "Ball". So I guess that's her first word. Incidentally, that's also Caleb's first word. Perhaps it's coz we've got lots of balls at home. One thing we have learned about Sarah is that she speaks when she's really desperate to be understood. There was a night when she was very sleepy and sitting in her car seat. She wanted me to carry her out and started brawling very loudly. I didn't and after crying for like 10min in the car seat, in between her sobs, she started saying very clearly,"Ma-Ma, Bao-Bao (carry in Mandarin)" She said it so clearly that I wanted to laugh. (Yes, the evil mummy...)
There was this other time when I carried her next to the water cooler and she was so fascinated playing with it. Then it was time to leave so I walked away from the water cooler to wait for Daddy. She was reluctant to leave and kept pointing to the water cooler and going "erh, erh, erh". I ignored her coz it was time to leave and out of desperation or perhaps frustration on her part, she started kicking her legs vigorously, pointing relentlessly at the water cooler and saying,"there, there, there..." very loudly. That was when I concluded, hey this girls speaks during desperate moments. But of course I wouldn't try to frustrate her just to get her to speak la. She would do so in her own time.

Health wise, I've been so thankful that she hasn't fallen sick at all until one week before her birthday. That's the time when our entire family fell ill so apparently the virus was too powerful for her so she fell victim to it as well. Though she was still very active and alert during the time that she was sick, her appetite was quite badly affected and she ate very little and drank very little milk. I was getting quite worried coz to begin with, she's not much of an eater. It's only this week that I see her slowly gaining back her appetite.

Personality. My dear girl has been showing more and more traits of a feisty little chilli padi. This month, we actually saw her giving her kor kor dirty looks when he snatched her toy or pushed her away. Sometimes she even gives out a big, angry yell when what she's holding or wants is taken away. And at such a young age, she's already learned the art of acting blur when she's being scolded. When she does sometime wrong like play with the power sockets and I scold her for it, she actually refuses to look at me and continues to play and sometimes pretend to laugh at her own private joke. Daddy and me both think we'll need to take a tougher stand with this girl when we need to discipline her.

Anyway, I was looking at her old photos and I just have to share with everybody how my baby has grown!

Moment of arrival. My first thoughts then other than than relief that she has finally arrived, was that she's as loud as her brother when she cries.


1st Month. Very scrawny and tiny still. Ya, amongst the cousins, she's really the tiniest one. The only babe born at 2.78kg. Caleb and his cousins were all 3.2kg and above. I remember Yeeyee being amazed that she could fit nicely into clothes that Nic and Nat couldn't even fit in at birth.


2 months old. Looking very alert and the fats are starting to set in.


3 months old. We started to see her patient and gentle personality. The chilli padi side of her came to light a little later...


4 months old. It's the start of her "balding" season. See how fast she's losing hair!


5 months old. Very cheerful and smiley with people whom she's familiar with.


6 months old. Sitting up and starting to crawl...


7 months old. Phase of stuffing everything she can get her hands on into her mouth...


8 months old. Started swimming, and looking very cute in her swimsuit.


9 months old. New found mobility! Standing and cruising a little around the house.


10 months old. Starting to be more socialable and finally, her hair is starting to grow again!


11 months old. Attempting to walk on her own.


12 months old. Standing, walking, interacting, she's a whole load of fun to be with...
Presenting my cheeky girl... (this photo is courtesy of Sarah's Aunty Yoey during our trip to KL)

Planning, Executing and Succeeding

Caleb hatched a wonderful plan this morning, executed it and ended up getting exactly what he wanted.

Caleb's grandpa and grandma came over early this morning to babysit the children. Even before they arrived, Caleb has already asked me if he could give a packet (a small one) of cookie (which he got from a birthday party yesterday) to Grandpa. Well, I thought, "what a sweet boy", and I said "of course!".

So Grandpa and Grandma arrived, Caleb heard them coming, and surprised them at the door. The first thing Caleb did was to offer the packet of cookie, and insisted that Grandpa open and eat it immediately (even while Grandpa was still outside the gate). Grandpa said he'll eat it when he comes in and Caleb kept putting pressure on him all the way, saying how it was his present, how nice it was etc... building the excitement on how exciting the cookie was.

Grandpa came in, and promptly opened the packet of cookie to eat. Then Grandpa exclaimed that there were actually two cookies inside. Caleb promptly (and gleefully) told Grandpa that Grandpa should share with him, took one of the cookies and almost immediately took a bite at it.

We were all surprised and as we were discussing how he must have hatched this plan so that he can eat the cookie himself, he just sat there, eating his cookie with a satisfied grin on his face.

Caleb taking photos

On top of being happy to pose for pictures these days, Caleb has also started taking photos of his own. I remember him doing it before (when he was about 2+ yrs old) and I had to hold the camera for him. Now he is strong enough to hold the camera and goes about taking the photos that he like.

Here's what he took... all quite good actually... with the subject in the picture and at angles that are pretty artistic.



Here's one that he took of me... a bit blur due to hand shake... but well, a father treasures all that the son creates. What a lovely picture!


Caveat: Pictures were not altered, cropped, processed in anyway, other than compressing it to suit web pages better.