Really Pretty Sick

I was right in titling my last post. XX is not just pretty when sick, he IS pretty sick! Me and my stinko mouth!

I thought he was on the road to recovery after the fever subsided but that night, he kept us awake throughout the night with his sniffing, whining, crying and vomitting. (As I'm writing this in the bedroom, the faint smell of the vomitus on the carpet can still be smelt.)

From two plus in the cold morning, he would stir every 5 minutes or so, sit up, cough abit and then sit there whimpering. We tried to tell him to lie back but the more we talked to him, the more he cried. He asked for milk which was promptly granted. Anything to get him back to bed. But even after the milk, he tried to sleep but he can't. Something is bothering him, but we don't know what. It could be his throat or his nose or his head....we can only speculate and try to calm him. Some crying later, he eventually threw up the milk he'd drank. I'd tried to move him to vomit over the bucket which Hubby had placed next to the bed but with all the sheets around my feet, the bedsheet and carpet was still stained.

For some strange reason, XX wants to go out of the room. So both of us went downstairs with him to the living room. In the cold wintery wee hours, we even tried playing toys with him, anything to make him happy so we can all go back to sleep. Then I get this bright idea to play his favourite songs from 'Ou De Yang' and hubby rocked him. It almost worked, until hubby put him down on the cushion (probably his arms got tired) when the little one wasn't really into deep sleep yet.

My memory is hazy now on how we eventually got back into our beds and XX finally nodded off. There was still the waking ups and crying each time he turned but thankfully, there was no need for us to get out of bed, just holding of my hands and my presence was sufficient.

Oh did I mention before that we hold hands to sleep? My earlier blogs has recorded that XX has this habit of touching flesh during his sleep. He used to dig his nails into our arms or scratch us with his fingers when he sleeps. But since we moved to Australia, his habit has evolved. With the change in climate, my pyjamas now basically reduces any exposed flesh to just my hands. So XX has adapted and loves to hold on to my hands/fingers when he falls off to sleep. It's got a calming and reassuring effect on him. It's looks sweet and feels close to hold hands initially but sometimes, he grasps it for a long time and that's when you feel 'locked', not to mention the arm muscles aching for a change in posture!

Anyway, we brought him to see the doctor the next day and he's now on antibiotics. He has runny nose so when he lies down to sleep, I think the mucus must have blocked his breathing and cause the congestion. The 2nd night was better. Again, many waking and sitting ups in the night but no need for milk nor going out of the room. I am awoken but I just watch him and after a while of sitting up, he lies down on the pillow again, holding hands of course. Phew!

Pretty Sick

XX is a single-eyelid boy, most of the time. He's not bad looking but occasionally, when he develops double-eyelids, his eyes became more mesmerising, glistering under those long eye lashes that most girls would die for.

However when this happens, we know that something's not right. Whenever he develops double eyelids, it is usually when he is about to fall sick or get a fever. We now know that the glistering came from his watery eyes. It happened the last time when he had Kawasaki disease.

Two days ago, XX's double eyelids came out again. Hubby commented, "this is not good." Sure enough, later that night, he had fever. We can also hear that he's got some nasal congestion. Luckily the fever was quite mild and a few doses of baby Panadol later, he should be on the road to recovery.

He probably got this from KK, who must have got the germs from school. KK was the first to complain that he wasn't feeling too well last week. However he did not develop any fever and only had runny nose and a lot of flam. Then I too started to feel discomfort in my throat but it got better on its own 2 days later. XX must be the latest victim of this virus.

It's an irony. I do love the sight of his pretty eyes, but at the price of his health? I'll rather he just stay single eyelid.

No Sweat

Last week was a new milestone for me. 3 weeks after we moved here, Hubby had to travel overseas for work for a week, leaving me and the 2 kids to mind the house. I had played the role of the 'single parent' before but that was in S'pore, where I'd had some help from my parents and/or the domestic helper. So naturally, there was some apprehension on my part as well as from Hubby and even from my faraway but worried mother, that I couldn't cope. I did my best by doing some forward planning for the week, cooking and freezing some ready to eat cooked food. Hubby topped up the gas in the car and made sure I had funds to spend.

Well, one week has passed and I think I'm happy with my performance. In between feeding the kids and myself, I'd even managed a trip to a nearby shopping center and doing a round of vacuuming and laundry. I wasn't too stressed out nor tired, that was an indication to me that I'm managing ok.

Looking back, I begin to evaluate how I managed to do it (You know me lah, the super analytical one :-) whereas previously in S'pore, even with help, I've gone into 'burnt out' mode before.

Here's my analysis:

Routine
For a start, I kept the routine simple and didn't venture out anywhere except sending KK to school and to the local supermarket. KK being in school for 6 hours helps. The only problem is waking him up in the cold mornings.

Concentration
There was nothing much to distract me from my motherly duties. Television program sucks. In any case, the TV was hogged by either KK or XX, watching Spongebob Squarepants, Mr Men or Transformers, I'll be lucky if I caught 15 mins of the 6 o'clock news. On Tuesday, my laptop suddenly broke down. This practically forced me to abstain from Facebook, Gmail and Blogger and concentrate all my time and energy to the kids.

Weather
I credit the weather most for making household chores, leaping up and down the stairs and cooking feels like a breeze. Literally 'no sweat'. It's so much more pleasant to rush to pick up your son, dragging your 19 month old along, putting him in and out of the car seat, when the temperature is 15 degrees and not 30 degrees.

Having Fun_2

This is becoming a daily 'before bedtime' ritual - bouncing on the mattresses and putting the springs to test, until they are panting and all hyped up. Not really winding down, relaxation type of exercise, I know, but once you get them calmed down after they've exhausted all their energy, they do fall asleep quite easily.

Having Fun_1

Having fun can be so simple!

Growing Appetite

Besides his communication, XX's appetite and diet is also growing in variety and quantity. It is not uncommon for XX to finish a slice of strawberry jam sandwich after his morning milk feed. He is growing increasingly curious about different food and also surprisingly more and more open to opening his mouth and trying out new food.

We will always ask him at the dinner table if he wants to try this or that. Mostly, he'll say yes to noodles stuff. So far, he still says 'no need' to rice. This boy also likes noodles, like his older brother. Sometimes, instead of porridge or baby cereal, I'll let him have noodles in soup or chow mien and he loves them! He's also trying out harder stuff like sausages and crunchy apples, cut into small pieces, though he'll sometimes spit out the fibre. Today, we offered him pizza and he took quite a few bites of it!

Here's a video of him trying to poke and eat sausages:

Eating Delights

I had initially thought that I'll miss S'pore food when we come over here. Contrary to what I believed, so far, we have not been missing S'pore food at all.


Simply because:

1) I've stocked up quite a bit of my local favourites in the form of Prima Deli Ready-to-Cook Meal Kits and other pre-mix spices and brought them along. They all cleared the Australian customs' scrutiny.



So far, I've tried to make Mee Rebus with success - I bought the yellow Hokkien noodles and added green chilli, prawns and eggs. I cannot find any 'tau kua' though. The Hainanese chicken rice kit is quite complete too. My first time poaching a whole chicken and cutting out the meat....didn't do too badly.



2) There are quite alot of good restaurants near and around us where we can find authentic Chinese/Asian food.


Went to one Dim Sum restaurant just about 10 mins drive away in Sunshine. The dim sum there is really scrumptious....I love the egg tarts, better than many I've eaten in Singpore. Even XX loves them!









3) The nearby supermarket does carry quite a bit of Asian foodstuff and sauces. Or if we drive 20 mins to Footscray, we can find quite alot of Chinese food and groceries in the Vietnamese fresh markets there.


We went there last Sunday and I stocked up on quite alot of sauces, like Lee Kum Kee's Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood and black bean garlic sauce. I even got this 'chiu chow style lo sui marinade'. Don't know what it is but I think it'll taste good with chicken. Can't wait to try it. I also found wanton skin, tofu, fishball, chinese sausage and even 'zhu chang fen'!


Last night, I steamed the 'zhu chang fen' for dinner. We had tried to find the 'zhu chang fen' sweet sauce but it turned out the Vietnamese doesn't eat it that way so they don't sell it. So I improvised by using the Lee Kum Kee Seasoned Soy Sauce for Seafood and a little fried onion oil. The result was marvellous! It tasted exactly like those 'cheong fun' that we eat in dim sum restaurants. I had minced pork which I'd made into siew mai for KK and used some of the balance mince pork to roll into the 'fun cheong'. KK loved them, more than the siew mai.

New School New Adjustments

This Monday KK started a new chapter in his school life. It was his first day at his new Primary School. I woke up at about 7.45am to prepare breakfast and lunch for him before waking him up at 8am. For him, it was just another day....he lazed about, unwilling to get up until we told him there was cartoon downstairs.



The first day was uneventful and KK joined his new class in the assembly area without any fuss. We went home shortly after seeing him get into his classroom. The house is much more quiet and XX played peacefully on his own without KK around.



Today is his 2nd day. Despite us making attempts to get him to bed at 9.30pm last night, KK didn't sleep until about 10.30pm. Again, he refused to get out of bed and complained about the '6-hours' schooltime, he doesn't want 6 hours, 6 hours is too long, why 6 hours....blah blah blah. Already wasted time upstairs getting him up and changed, he next ate like a snail at the breakfast table. In the end, he could only finish his bread and half a cup of milk. In the car, I ordered him to stop whining about the "6 hours" school and told him to tell the teacher if he didn't like it. I was fed-up with his excuses.



I'd pack him an apple pie for lunch together with a bottle of water. Yesterday, I'd prepared ham and cheese sandwich for him. He returned home with half of the sandwich still in the box. He claimed he didn't like cheese. Fine. Today, his whole apple pie was untouched. He said there wasn't any microwave oven to heat up the pie that's why he didn't eat it. His water, he only drank about 50ml of it. I really blew my top when I think that he survived for 6 hours only on that 1 piece of bread and half a cup of milk he had in the morning. I seriously don't know which planet he comes from and what kind of petrol he runs on. He got a huge scolding from me and from his father for being rude when we lectured him. His punishment - standing in the garage for 5 mins and no treats like juice and chocolates that night.

Communication

Since moving to Australia, XX has advanced very much in his linguistic skills. I don't know, maybe it's because now I face him every minute, so I noticed his development more or our increased constant interaction with him has helped him to pick up words faster.

He has quite a lot of words in his vocabulary, sufficient to get him understood most of the time, although his pronunciation is still far from perfect, so you've got to pause a little to listen carefully. The most marvellous thing about kids, they're not afraid of embarrassment if they don't pronounce the words correctly and they sound cute mispronuncing it! So far, XX will try and succeed most of the time to follow the sound that we make with 90% accuracy. While he used to only pronounce the last syllabus, he's recently managed even 2 syllabus words like "cookie" and "mummy". Currently, his daddy is trying to teach him to say "A - Z" while he sits at the toilet bowl.

Here are some examples:

When he wants us to follow him somewhere:
XX: (pulls your hand) "Come! See!"
XX: (finger pointing) "Rage"(It took me awhile to understand he meant the 'ga-rage'.

Demanding for food:
XX: "Brad, brad, brad, BRAD! (bread)

or

XX: "kate, kate, kate!" (biscuit)

Declining an offer:
Me: "You want some rice?"
XX: "No need." (pushes spoon away)
Me: "You want noodles?"
XX: (looks serious and nods his head.)

Wanting to watch Spongebob Squarepants cartoon:
XX: "bob bob pants pants"

When driving, he'll point out and identify "cars", "buses" and "trucks".

When all his words fail him, our 19 month old boy can always fall back on the universal cry and his "ng..." to make his wishes known.

No Condensation!

If only the water was not so icy cold. Every morning, I wished I could brush my teeth without wetting my hands. However, despite the constant application of moisturizers and multi-layering of clothes, I realised that there are definite benefits to living in the cold and dry climate.

• No condensation. You can bring out your milk, juices from the fridge and they don't leave a wet patch of condensation on your dining table.
• Butter remains hard and requires no refridgeration.
• Rubbish don't stink and insects don't visit your trash even if you've forgotten to clear them the night before. Over here, the rubbish collection trucks comes by only once a week.
• Cornflakes and biscuits don't need to be stored in air-tight containers. In fact, just leave them in the cartons and they stay crisp and fresh for days.
• You always get ice-cool water without adding ice. Red wines need not be chilled before drinking.
• Ice-cream stays cold and hard longer after you take if out of your fridge.
• I get to wear all my winter coats, jumpers and woolies which I've been accumulating in the cupboard for years.
• You don't need to change your clothes everyday because you don't perspire at all. In fact, you don't even need to bathe everyday.
• I finally get to wear those knee-high boots and don't feel so out of place.

One Week Later

It's been slightly more than a week since our big move to Australia and we FINALLY got our internet modem this afternoon. So much to update...where do I start?

Well, the flight to Melbourne went rather smoothly. XX settled down to sleep (with the help of Ou De Yang on MP3) shortly after take-off and awoke only near to landing. The 3 of us also took a quick meal and decided to call it a night. It's gonna be a long day for us when we arrive, so better get all the rest I can. Unfortunately, this time round, the seats in Business Class are not lie-flat and the Inflight Entertainment is not AVOD. End up, I didn't even touch my headsets for the whole flight.

Our 200kg of cargo

The Melbourne airport segment was chaotic. The ground staff of SIA were supposed to "Meet and Assist" us, but we got a rude reply of "we don't carry luggage" and more than 5 repetitions of "we don't have porter service" from the ground staff meeting us on arrival. In the end, we picked up our 14 pieces of checked-in luggage ourselves and wheeled all of them, including the hand-luggage to clear customs. There were alot of flights landing there in the morning, so the queue for the customs was like 500 metres long. Thank God, half way through, a customs staff assisted us to a fast lane and we cleared through soon after. XX and KK were extremely good boys and behaved patiently throughout.




Thanks to Hubby making all the prior arrangements, by the time we collected the keys from the landlord and moved into the house, there was already electricity, water, gas and our mattresses were there waiting for us! The first hiccup was the Queen size bedsheet and quilt cover that I've bought in Singapore was too small for my Australian made Queen mattress and quilt! I used our old king sized bedsheet instead.

XX trying out our new Corolla Ascent

Since then, we've managed to unpack almost 90% of the boxes we've brought. We've also collected our car and bought our microwave oven, fridge and washing machine. We've also managed to buy a dinning table with 6 chairs and even a plasma TV. Now all that's missing would be a couch and a TV console....plus a few minor things, like a shoe rack, coat hooks etc. Hopefully we can make the house more comfortable before KK starts school next week.

Having fun in the carton for the TV

The cold and dry weather here demanded the greatest adjustment to our lifestyle. Bathing or having a shower was such a simple act in S'pore. Now, we can't just walk the kids into the bathroom for a bath. Before that, we have to turn on the heater in the bathroom to warm up the room. Then we've to make sure that the towels and clothes are all ready when they come out of the bath. I tried to shower KK and XX together for the first 2 days and it was crazy. XX has this phobia of water splashing on his head and face, so imagine a screaming baby in a slippery, cold and wet environment with a mummy who's wet and cold and a brother who's wet, cold and having fun.... It's a war zone. Anyway, we found a peaceful solution for the time being. Now the kids play in the bathtub filled with warm water in the heated bathroom. While watching over them, I or Hubby will take our shower in the shower cubicle next to it. After we're done, we'll slowly drain the water out so that XX will willingly come out. KK goes for a shower and we dry XX.

Bath time = Play time

After the bath, another thing that we have to do that we don't in S'pore is putting on moisturiser. For me, my skin will remind me that I have not yet moisturised. I try to apply for the children too, especially for XX whose face has developed some cold rash. Other minor adjustments includes always walking around the house with slippers and washing dishes/clothes with gloves.

Other than that, everything else is great. Shopping for groceries and cooking here is easier than I expected. I just pop into the car (parked right outside the door in our garage) and zip 1 minute away to the nearby Coles supermarket which is opened till mid-night everyday. I can park (for free) near the entrance and push out the trolley later all the way to the car when I'm done. In fact, I find it so much more convenient than shopping at NTUC in Eastpoint. Variety wise, of course you can't find stuff like 'tau kua' or xiao bai cai, but in general, there're enough choices for you to make a delicious meal.

XX having breakfast of chocolate milk and weetbix.

Ok, enough said for now. Will write more about my experience here next time.