Rotavirus

Miss K started her Thursday morning vomiting out her morning milk feed. Before leaving for school, she vomited again.
In school, she vomited practically everything (and more) that went in.
A quick trip to the GP at noon did not give us any conclusive diagnosis of her condition.
After a short nap, she was so hungry as she had not had any food nor liquid the whole day, so she gobbled down a banana and some yoghurt and 2 hours later, 4oz of milk, 5 minutes after her milk feed, she merlioned everything she ate!
I started to panic when her lips turned slightly blue and her whole body started to shake uncontrollably!

Hurried to her PD, Dr. Lieu (but it was slightly before her opening time, and she has not arrived yet), so we went straight to Mt.Alvernia A&E.
There were no PD on duty at the A&E, as it was a general A&E, but we were given priority as Miss K's fever went up to 40.6 degC!
The doctor on duty was pretty undecided and so I made the decision to ward her as I told the doc that she would be very dehydrated as she had no fluids the whole day (duh!)

After several tests, she was diagnosed with rotavirus infection. Miss K's symptoms were:
- severe vomiting
- could not retain any fluids/food, whatever went in came out.
- high fever (the >40degC type)
- severe diarhoea

I did not give her the rotarix vaccine. (There was this scare about contamination of rotarix vaccine soon after I was told that she was over the age limit for this vaccine to be effective)

Miss K's now 'famous' amongst the St. Gabriel ward nurses - she is the most difficult patient to be fed oral medication (a nurse took 1 hr to feed her 3 types of meds on day 1, very patient nurse!) The nurse on Day 3 actually told me she was 'terrified' and is 'stressed' when it comes to medicine feeding time for Miss K!
She vomits out all her medicine, food, liquid, etc, basically everything without fail every single meds feeding session.
They must be jumping for joy when we left the hospital at 7pm.
She is still weak but is on the road to recovery.
Thanks everyone for your prayers, concern and well wishes!

Here are some snapshots from Mt. Alvernia Hospital:



Miss K's stay at Mt. A, St. Vincent's Room, St. Gabriel's Ward
Day 3: Happy going on the slide in the playroom.



The Finger Incident, The Sequel

Sequel to The Finger Incident which happened exactly 2 weeks ago,... yes, as predicted it came off!
Here are some pictorial depiction of the sequel:

I guess it did not hurt at all;
she was playing with the loose nail the whole day (according to her Teacher Adrianne)

I did not want her to swallow her dangling nail so I took her nail scissors and cut off her nail!
Ta da! New fingernails :)

And this spells the end of Miss Purple Finger's reign.

'Two thumbs up'

Gong Gong, I can finally do the two thumbs up sign! Hooray!
(was gong gong who first taught her this)

When one asks Miss K "how old are you?" she will stick out her index finger doing the 'one' sign (she could do this since 12 months, ok, ok, yes, it was me who insisted that she learns it, not a Tiger Mother in making, just thought it would be cute, ...well, she picked it up real fast then!)
Oh well, in 8 months' time, you would need to learn the "two" sign!

At least the 'thumbs up' sign which she mastered a week ago will not expire...haha!

This is Miss K's favourite toy for now...she loves the purple microphone as it actually works like a real mic! (middle picture)
Thanks to JieJie Andrea and Anya for this lovely toy! :)
Yup, two thumbs up ratings!

Left and Right: Miss K with her 'thumbs up' signs.
Middle: Her cheeky smile-until-can't-see eyes pose (taught by PaPa) tsk!!

Extreme Parenting?

During a departmental lunch yesterday, a few collegues were discussing about the controversial "Chinese Parenting" book written by Amy Chua, a Law Professor at Yale, Battle Hymm of the Tiger Mother.

No TV and videogames, No Playdates, Insist on physical labour, MUST only get As in school....Is this the 'right' way to raise smart and successful kids?

Its surprising to hear (from some of my colleagues) that one might be partially "forced" into this parenting style in order to keep up with the Singaporean Education System.

One colleague told me this story:
Daughter came back from primary school, with her first report card, she scored 75-80% (on average) for her subjects, so parents were really happy.
Daughter was sad.
Why? 'Everyone else' in class did much better than her!
Daughter pleaded to go for extra tuition and music classes as 'everyone else in class' goes for tuition and enrichment classes.

My childhood memories were often filled with lots of fun things;
Lots of care-free days chatting and baking with mum in the kitchen.......
Running around the garden, plucking grass, wild flowers and leaves for 'masak-masak' session with the siblings while dad mows the lawn.......
The whole brood cycling to the beach to see the sunset........
Going for swim-dates with my friends and family, fooling around the pool and beach (I miss the beach club)....
And what I love best, putting on my Brownie uniform and using Brasso to polish all my badges for Brownie sessions every saturday....

Will Miss K be able to enjoy a rich and fun-filled childhood, like what I had?

I really identify with Corsage's blog entry I'm a Chinese Mother Too.
I pray that God will lead me each day, so I will have the wisdom and knowledge to bring Miss K up well, to be a Godly child and Blessed in all aspects of life.

Hello Kitty Swimsuit

I totally loved this swimsuit when I saw it at H&M in Munich last year. I could not resist the temptation,...this one I must have.
I think it looks good on Miss K too!



Top: Lounging on the deck chairs before going into the pool.
Bottom: Being a good sport-posing for the camera before leaving for the pool.



Ella's Kitchen 'Baby' Brekkie

And I was rather surprised she still likes those mushy 'baby food'.
Ella's Kitchen must have made it super yummy!
Miss K had the Banana Baby Brekkie which had organic bananas, organic whole natural yoghurt and organic brown rice.
She finished the whole pack and wanted more!
Unfortunately, the sis only bought Miss K ONE of each flavour as she wasn't sure whether Miss K would still like mushy baby food.
This definitely made it to her favourite list.

Munching on rice snacks after a pack of baby brekkie

Ouch!

Got a call from Infant Care this morning, telling me that they are going to bring Miss K to KKH A&E! (my heart started to beat real fast), Melody (the branch director) told me that one of her infant care teacher accidentally clamped Miss K's index finger while closing one of the doors, it was then red and swollen and the nails started to turn black. So, she is bringing Miss K down to KKH for observation.

(I was amazingly pretty calm; had an extremely packed schedule for the day, so I can't leave work!)

Thank God, x-ray did not show any fracture, but the MO will send the x-ray up to the specialist for further 'inspection'. Supposed to get a call from them in 3 day's time....
J made a short trip to KKH to see how Miss K was, according to J she was subdued and did not even show any emotions (normally she will be really happy and calls PAPA real loud!)

When I picked her up after work, she is back to her chirpy and happy self! :)



will be left handed for a while :)




Asked her to put her finger on her leg so I can get a good shot of her injury
... and she obediently did.



The Polliwogs

It was a father-daughter bonding day today.

Sadly, I had to work the whole day, so was quite disappointed when I was told that J was meeting up with his ex-colleagues and their kids at Polliwogs in the afternoon. I had so wanted to go to Polliwogs after seeing photos of other mummies and their kids having so much fun at Polliwogs!

Was rather glad that I took up an 'assignment' which allowed me to finish work a little earlier today, hence I was able to pop into Polliwogs before everyone left.

And yes, I did manage to spend some few minutes with Miss K at the indoor play area. It was fun! Miss K went ecstatic when she saw the amount of balls in the ball pit!
She totally loved the slides.

p/s. Not great photos as these were taken using my phone camera.

Food Finds

Finally managed to pop into Galbiati Gourmet Deli for a bite.
Their lunch set menu was quite good at $18++.

I had pumpkin soup for starter, was not as creamy as I would like it to be...but their pasta was cooked perfectly al dente with very simple ingredients.
Dessert of the Day tasted like German stollen crossed with pandoro with raisins, served with vanilla custard which was yummy!
My only grouse was the weak coffee!

They have a good range of desserts on display...will check them out next visit.

Miss K loves this home made bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

01.01.11 @ Jurong Bird Park

The first day of the year greeted us with lots of sunshine! Thank you Lord for such a beautiful start to the new year...

We had breakfast at the Hawk's Cafe, no seats outside as the morning show was on, so decided to just have breakfast inside the air-conditioned area. The nasi lemak was good!

Miss K loved the Birds and Buddies show at the Pool amphitheater.

It was a very sunny day, so I put on a hat for Miss K. Initially, we thought she would hate it and will not put it on at all but surprisingly, she loves her hat sooo much, she even refused to take it off when I was changing her diaper.

And before we left, Miss K has to check out the souvenir store; yes, hats on!