Zoo

 Zelyn's first trip to the zoo!

 

Set off early in the morning, well not so early exactly though we wish to be earlier. Weather was abit gloomy but still we decide to cross our fingers and go ahead as planned since Zethan have been nagging about the visit weeks back. Anyhow we reached around 10ish (which is not too bad a record for us since we are never early people) and the place is really very packed! Half expecting the bad crowd since it is a sunday but hope that the crowd will be 'disperse' around in the zoo. Decide to have early lunch to beat the crowd and also because the restaurant is just a short walk from the entrance so it is only wise to fill the tummy before setting off the long walk.

Zelyn was really restless during our meal, rejecting the baby snacks so we had to keep up with entertaining her with iphone, utensils, tissue papers, whatever 'resources' we could lay our hands on. Lesson learnt - never attempt to bring new snacks during outings! Regardless of a busy mealtime, no major meltdown experienced though as usual I had to gobble down my food in doubly quick the time. She was really exhausted by now since it is nearing her naptime thus she fell asleep amid her feed. Could be a good thing since we are still in aircon environment so she could recharge to brave the heat.

 

First stop to look at the seals and penguins. A pity the shows were cancelled due to upgrading but no major loss since Zethan have seen it a few times and Zelyn is still napping. Then to the gorillas and orang utans and the many different species of monkeys, apes etc. By now Zelyn is all recharged and ready to tour the zoo! I was really excited at the Polar bear enclosure not only because it is aircon but also it's one of my favourite animal! However it is sleeping and we only caught a glimpse of the dirty backside and feet. This trip was quite fruitful as we covered most of the animals enclosures e.g. White Tiger, Rhino, giraffes, lions, leopard, zebras, hippo, meercats, flamingos, otters and kangeroos. One of the baby kangaroo even escape out of the fence to hop over to the other end and Zethan was really excited to see that. 

 

We stopped by at the rainforest kidzworld and was hesitating if we shall changed the kids for some fun in the water playground. Daddy was very resistant as the weather do not look like it's holding up and the kids have just recovered from flu and cough. A good thing we did not as shortly after it rained and was a sudden heavy downpour. Unfortunately we are very near to the KFC thus took shelter inside and had our teabreak while Zelyn had her milk. After the rain, we were just in time for the animal show which is the only show we managed since a few shows were cancelled due to upgrading reasons. Zelyn watched the show in silence, concentrating really hard at the performance of the dogs and cats.

 

Make another trip to the polar bear hoping to see him in action but the poor fella was drooling badly with dirty fur, too lethargic to even move. Feeling a little disappointed, we end the zoo trip. It was pretty amusing we could spent a good 7 hours at the zoo with both children! In a nutshell it was very much do-able and obviously Zethan still enjoyed much more than Zelyn, she napped through most of the time thus did not catch many animals. No complains here since she did very well and no fussing in the stroller otherwise we might break our old sets of bones having to carry her and walking around the zoo. Some of the interesting discovery, Singapore Zoo no longer have the normal tigers (orange with stripes) and we spotted a few monitor lizards strolling around at their free will which freaked us out big time. Zethan was really vocal and observant this trip as he could remember very well what they did during the last school outing to the zoo therefore he compared the activities between that and this trip and narrated a lot of what the teachers shared during the outing. It's a pity that we did not managed to take many photos of Zelyn as she is mainly strapped in the stroller and we do not wish to risk her rejecting it after carrying her out. Possibly another trip when Zelyn is older and could enjoyed watching the animals.

 

Cheeky

The little girl is getting really cheeky, always trying out new tricks to tickle us pink.

 

She try to wink, give her cheeky smile whenever she is up to mischief. We have to be really careful with her getting korkor into trouble as a lot of times she will pretend and put on her super pathetic face complaining about knocking her head etc. So we have to not jump into conclusion when that happen otherwise korkor will become the victim when he is the innocent party.

It is definitely a tall order to control laughing out loud at her tactics with s stern face so not to encourage some of her mischief. Balancing act between discipline and enjoying her adorable acts.

4.5

The obsession with numbers once again? Nope, do not wish to go right down to the precise details thus shall and always have used that as Zethan's current age.

 

Geez, the pace he is growing up is unbelievable, turning 5 in 2 over month's time. Honestly we can no longer regard him as our 'baby' though a lot of time we still addressed him as baby, too used to it.

 

I am seriously very pleased at his progress in MKG as seen in the songs and rhymes he brought home, both English and Chinese. He is attempting to converse in Mandarin with us at home which is clearly a good sign especially when he seem to really enjoy it. Coming to words which he is uncertain of, he will ask in English for us to teach him in Mandarin and it had become an interesting 'game' we played as part of our bonding session.

 

For example, as of late, he would love to lead us asking him what are the animals he saw during the last school excursion as well as our family outing to the zoo. You might have guessed it, he would want us to recite the animals in Chinese to which he will respond if he did or did not spot them over the trips. Quite a fun and interesting activity I must say, it's definitely educational too.

 

The frustration I have was the hindering factors that is stopping me from signing him up for any enrichment classes. If not because the class is really popular and FULL, it will be missing out the timeline on existing class and the new available class is quite far ahead or not even available till further notice. Next would be most classes are conducted over the weekends, in specific on Saturday which is a major headache since I am working on alternate Saturday which is fine right as we can always look out for classes after lunch. That lead me to the next irritation, Saturday at work means EXCO meeting and for whatever reason which I could not understand it somehow involve ikan bilis like us who is not management. Which is still fine again but the so very not fine thing is, meeting always exceed past our officially working hours and if we are lucky till 1pm or if not so lucky then it's 2pm! With such uncertain working hours on sat, there is no way I can schedule or signed him up for any enrichment classes at all!

 

Asking him for his 'birthday' wish, he requested to go LEGOLAND again which could be attributed by the intense TVC promoting the opening of water park in LEGOLAND. My initial plans was a visit to UK Agro Farm Resort and a night stay in the resort but quite unfortunately his birthday fall on a Saturday and they only have full board package available and there is no option for accommodation only.  So it's either checking in on Sunday which means we need to apply for leave on Monday or simply do a day trip which is very do-able since it's merely about 1.5 hours drive one way. Guess half a day spent there suffice. Showed him some photos I Google and checked his interest on bottle feeding kids (the baby goat not human kids), goats grazing etc which he did appear really keen and reminded me on a few occasions since then.

 

Lately he seem to be really uninterested in his milk feeds for whatever reasons I have yet to identify at this point. It could hardly be possible due to weaning off the milk bottle as he is still drinking pretty well from his new sippy cup for a good while. Crossing out all other possible causes from the list, could not be formula (no change in formulation or brand), decrease in appetite (not likely as he is cutting back on meals portions as well as volume per milk feed). I am more concern and particular when it come to 1st milk intake of the day or breakfast. He refused milk stating he is not hungry and reject any other choices for breakfast totally, now that appear to be a genuine cause for concern. How could he be not hungry after a night of sleep? Okay some might suggest bad appetite due to post waking up but even after an hour after waking, he would still showed reluctance to drink milk or any form of food intake. Hope that I am not thinking too much into it but I have not narrow out the possibility that some events might have happened in school which caused the rejection of milk as well as his behavioural issues which certainly have huge room for improvement. Well, need to put on my detective cap for some slow and steady investigation, wish me luck.

Sick

Both kids took turn to be down with flu, cough and fever for the past 2 weeks. It did not helped that Zethan insisted to sleep together with grandma and Zelyn in the same room.

 

First it was the flu and cough. Zethan got it first and soon spread to Zelyn so it's off to PD with both kids to ensure no chance of phlegm in the lungs especially Zethan. The phobia I had years back still remained till this day. Good thing was both are cleared and I took the chance to check with Dr. Dorothy on their growth and development. Zethan was both 90+% for height and weight while on the other extreme, Zelyn fare only 20% on the chart and the only normal average she had was the head circumference which is not a bad thing after all. Dorothy said that she is very likely to be petite so there should be no cause for concern and the minimum milk intake should be around 600mL daily supplementing her 2 meals of porridge.

 

So both kids recovered after a few days of medication but weird enough, Zethan's cough returned. Few days after, Zelyn is nursing a fever and I was caught off guard when the paracetemol in the fridge was opened more than 6 months thus need to be thrown away. Worst being we have no brand new bottle of Paracetemol except for Bifen which I am not comfortable giving since the fever was considered to be mild at 38+/-. We did suspect that she is cutting tooth thus the fever so monitor and patched her. When she recovered after a few doses of paracetemol, I received a call from Zethan's teacher that he is having a fever at 38 degrees thus will be keeping him in the office for us to pick him up. The daddy did and upon reaching home realised he had not taken lunch so gave milk. Halfway through his milk, he merlion big time. Observed that he is quite lethargic the evening I was home but luckily everything turned out find the next 2 days.

 

This is the first experience of both children having repeated episodes of bugs passing around. My guess was that the bug must be really strong since Zelyn was usually spared of it while Zethan tend to be more vulnerable which did worry me. The guilt got to me big time as well since Zethan was only partially breastfed till 6+ months while Zelyn had the privilege of  exclusively breastfed till 9+ months which probably explain their immunity levels. I expressed these thoughts to Dorothy and she put my guilt to rest stating that it is not a good basis of comparison since Zethan being a boy and firstborn so higher risk of lower immunity while Zelyn is a girl and being second born thus immunity naturally will be better.

 

Having recently read about an article of the side effects of paracetemol and bifen, even without a conclusive result, it was encouraged not to administer freely when it comes to mild fever. I am a little skeptical about the article though since it was not a documented study done to a large extent but it soon went viral, circulated in the social media. But still no harm to heed the advice and try to let the body fight the infection and build immunity in the process. Of course I must add that temperature have to be monitored lest it gets too high. So after all it is good to stay with home remedies like barley and chrysanthemum to cool down the body!

Exhausted

Seriously badly exhausted.

 

Need to clear the mind, reboot the whole system to think straight.

 

Lotsa stuff pushing me over the edge that I am uber suffocated and lost right now.

 

Simply could not bring myself to emit positive vibes which is what I would have to do at this current moment.

 

Please let this negativity be over soon....

FDW

How "lucky" can we get, what are the odds of being so 'lucky'

 

To quit the suspense, we are referring to my ex foreign domestic worker (FDW). Now I am sure most of the seasoned employers have a fair share of hiring terrible FDW. Speak of their horrible experiences with these FDW, it can be complied into a book 10 times the thickness of our oldish phone directory. Of course to be fair there are also a handful of very good and helpful FDWs out there so if you happen to hire one such good one, congratulation. Now we do know that the current guidelines and what's is and what's not are certainly very lopsided. Much protection have been offered to the FDWs and very little or close to NIL for the employers. The most common scenario will be 'holidaying FDW', they are armed with the wrong attitude to look look see see and if they are unhappy, challenged the employer to send them back to agency for transfer. The poor employer pay through their nose and got themselves into a fix with both the agency and MOM. Because of that the employer is always at the mercy of both the agency (especially after signing the contract) as well as the irresponsible FDWs.

 

Now back to our story, digress too much. Our very first FDW came for 6 hours before calling it quits giving ridiculous excuses such as refuse to share room with the baby, prefer to sleep in the living room, do not wish to eat in the kitchen, demand a mobilephone. It came as a great shock to us especially so being first time employer and so close to the festive season, Chinese New Year. The drama is supposed to end when the Myanmar counsel her and she changed her mind and decide to stay. The next episode being discovery of her 'medication' as she unpack her belongings. She claimed that those are her medications for heart and she had to take it daily otherwise showing me the actions of epilepsy. Seriously it scare the hell out of me when we had just gone through the trauma of Mum's heart attack and no way am I going to be responsible for another case. After some serious consideration and much discussions, we decide to send her back the following day. It was not a tough decision and the decision making process was escalated when she showed me her black attitude face in the morning while happily greeted the Sir. Because of this pathetic 6hrs, we had to pay agency fee, service her loan and not to forget the levy plus her food & lodging for the next 14 days or until she is transferred, whichever comes first. So we are at the mercy of the agency because we have paid thousands of dollars for her loan and agency fee.

 

So after a long delay and the post traumatized period, we finally decide to hire another Myanmar FDW after interviewing her over Skype. She is ex-Sin for 2yrs 3 mths and apparently had experiences caring for young baby. She finished her contract with 2 employer and decide to head home because of some health issues with her mum. We are expecting her very poor English and communication barrier but little did we expect it to be that bad. Her language is near to NIL and we had a tough time orientating and training her, familiarising her to the chores and household. I had to demonstrate everything from the start. It took a good 2 months before she get into the routine although she still tend to cut corners here and there thus requiring constant monitoring. Besides that to her credit, she is not too bad a helper, not meticulously clean and hygienic but bearable. Her English did not picked up despite being with us for a few months or perhaps she is just pretending not to understand or apprehend our conversations. We did suspect that she could understand Hokkien though which is very likely possible. The good thing is that children took to her pretty well and somehow they are able to communicate in their own ways.

 

Many would then wonder she sound like a good helper so why did we eventually repatriate her last week. Well fortunately or unfortunately she is diagnosed as Hepatitis B carrier which is a great shock to us. It so happen that her 6 monthly medical checkup is due and we had to bring her for VDRL only as requested by MOM. I decide to opt for HIV test to play safe as she is caring for 2 children and my susceptible mum. Fortunately after the blood taking, the nurse checked if I would like to include Hep A & B tests since I am going for optional HIV. I am so very glad that after moments of hesitation, I decide to include them as well and the blood drawn is sufficient to include both tests. The results came back few days later and I had the shock of my life when the doctor told me that she is confirmed Hep B carrier. I called home immediately and asked her to stay clear of everyone in the family, total no contacts. The next few hours went by in a mess, my mind was too cloudy and confused at what is going on. It is with no doubt that we are definitely not going to keep her so when and how to repatriate her is the way to go.

 

Informing her was really difficult and tall order since she could not exactly understand what we are trying to tell her the due causes of sending her back. It took 3 person and numerous attempts before we can shed some light on her but one could easily tell from her expression that she still do not understand what is going on. Anyhow we send her back to the agency, settle her salary, booked the flight out the following day. I have put up a query to MOM as to why Hep B is not mandatory in the medical examination before they are deem fit to commence as a FDW. Till this point of time, I have yet to receive a reasonable explanation from them. The officer could not even advise what is included in the full list of tests in the medical examination! Besides not offering their DID for contact purposes, she totally could not empathise with the traumatizing experience we have gone through as shown by statements in her words such as "you mean if you had known she is Hep B carrier, you would not have accepted her?" and "Í do not think that this particular case of yours is very serious?!!" Ridiculous isn't it especially when we have so single idea if we are even infected by her! Anyway this issue with MOM is still pending and I have been advised by many to pursue it further or even write to the various media for a greater exposure. Should you know of anybody from any form of media who will be keen to bring my case further, I will be more than glad to get in touch with them and share more in details.

 

On our end, the whole family went for blood test and I was really proud of my children as they did not even whimper at the finger prick and drawing of blood. Of course the credit also go to MAH for their skilful techniques with the children bringing the level of trauma down to the minimum. Thank goodness the results came back that none of us is reactive to Hep B meaning we are cleared. The huge relief and I felt much lighter after the worries weighing on me for the past week. However we are still waiting for the result for mum which is take slightly longer. Be positive, she will be fine too.

15 months

My sweetie pie turn 15 months old 2 days back, no time to blog until today. Work is killing me for the last 2 months.

 

Checklist for the milestones she attained.....

 

Feeding - she is very adventurous with food, love to snack and munch on food. For most of the food, she is up to the challenge with the only exception of taut food. Because of that, her fruits intake can be pretty limited and all time favourite remain as apple. So far she is rejecting kiwi and banana. Her milk intake appear to be improving slightly and we are currently supplementing her with 1 feed of Pediasure. Dare not switch totally to Pediasure for fear of constipation. She appear to be fine with majority of the vegetables but we still suspect that pumpkin give her boated tummy. She is not big on cereal now and would prefer porridge over cereal any time. Started to give her millet for porridge instead of just white rice but as she is unwell 2 weeks back, we halt millet for the time being. We have also transit her from double boiled porridge to cooked porridge so as to introduce her to different texture gradually. My guess would be soon we could introduce pasta and rice to her though I do not foresee any issue on her acceptance.

 

Gross motor skill - She is still very much furniture cruising but could observe that she is attempting to go support free and she can manage distance like 1m or more. Have yet to spot any sign that she could squat and stand to walk, it's still very much standing with support and moving off from there. She needed much more confidence and encouragement in that aspect. She is crawling really fast thus to be fair it make sense for her to crawl rather than walk which is much more productive?!! What she love to do is crawl quietly into our room when nobody is watching and either she happily aim at daddy's alarm clock or she will climb up our platform bed jolly well knowing we will be right behind her. The moment she spot us coming after her, she will plonk herself onto the bed and rolled around giggling happily.

 

 

 

 

 

Fine motor skill - She is really very good in her pincer skill and picking up puffs is an easy peasy stuff for her. That's how we keep her occupied during our meals or during times when she is just simply bored. It is just unbelievable at how she manage to master sliding our Iphone and Ipad to unlock, that should be the beauty of observation. Geez we do sound like bad parents always performing these actions in front of her so much so that she could master it without us coaching. She can navigate to the apps she is keen in with the touch of her thumb and smirked once she got right. The things we do not have to teach the kids and they simply pick it up, not that it's bad but it's not good either.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Speech - one can easily tell that she is a very 'sociable' little lad. Sociable sound positive or you could say that she is very talkative. She watches Teletubbies and love Lala, always calling out for Lala and all other cartoon characters are Lala to her. Woke up in the morning and the first word she call out will be lala! She master the word Tiger when I showed her 2 photos and repeatedly telling her Tiger and she picked it up immediately. The other words she say will be 'ah ma' (grandma), mama (mummy), papa (daddy), gou gou (dog), at (cat), kor (Zethan), ahpple (apple), Yes.

 

The rest are simply actions like wave goodbye, kiss goodbye, nodding head for yes, shaking her head violently for NO, open close her fist for wanting something or asking to come here, shaking her finger to say No no. She see dog she go woof, she see cat she go meow, playing with car she go vroom. She had an indescribable love for furry animals be it real or soft toys. She can spot them from a distance and started screaming in excitement for them, well that's a good thing to be an animal lover.

Absence

Absence make the heart fonder, a very true statement and heart warming particularly in my case.

 

These days Zelyn is so fun to be with, okay at least most of the time when she is not in her fussy mood. Before I leave the house for work, I will wave her goodbye at the doorstep. Most of the days she will put on her cheery smile which simply melt my heart and lift up her heart requesting for a high 5!. I would then have to remove my shoes, walked to her and give her a high 5 or rather few high 5s since the action will be repeated several times before I stepped out of the house.

 

As I am out for almost the whole day and more so on days when I had to go for my exercise regime, she simply jumped in joy when I returned home. It was such a bliss and pleasure to open the main door and seeing her smiling brightly and shrieking in joy! Awww.... a sight one can die for. So yes definitely I looked forward to be home, opening the main door and expecting the million dollar smile welcome me home!