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.