HFMD Returns

It's not even 2 years yet, and now Sze Yi got it again. Anyway, it was not as serious as last time, and we refused admission.

We only noticed something wrong with her when she suddenly grew withdrawn, and refused her lunch. She wanted to sleep instead. Then, we noticed that her temperature kept rising. Even after giving her paracetamol and sponging her, the fever didn't go down. So, we decided to take her to see the doctor. Luckily the usual hospital we went too has a PD on duty that time, unlike normal Saturday afternoons.

When we took her to see the PD, there's hardly any sign of spots on her body. But the moment he checked her mouth and saw ulcers inside it, he's very sure that it's HFMD. I told him that I didn't want to admit her, so he proceeded to have Sze Yi's ECG and blood test taken, as well as some sample of her saliva and stool. After all that, we could leave and came back for results in the evening.

We went home, and I gave her Manuka Honey, also applied some on her ulcers. I also managed to get some enzym from my colleague and gave her that. My colleague told me that when her daughter had that, she soaked her in enzym water bath and she got well very fast. So I also did the same for Sze Yi.

In the evening, we went back to the hospital for the results. Her ECG and blood test are normal, so I just needed to sign a letter saying that I refused admission and would bear all responsibility if anything happens. I informed her school principal about this, and she told me that she would have the school cleaned the first thing in the morning on Monday.

That night, Hubby and I took turns to monitor her, because the PD had warned us of the possibility of breathing difficulty, that could affect her heart and her brain. When her fever didn't go down after taking paracetamol, we decided to give her Brufen Ibuprofen one hour later. Thank goodness half an hour later, it went down. So we continue giving her paracetamol every 4-6 hours, while monitoring her progress.

All this while, we're rather worried for Sze Juin. We checked her, and Hubby do noticed some very faded spots on her hand and legs, and I even saw two small red spots in her mouth. But she's very active, have very good appetite and does not have fever so we decided to continue monitoring her. In the meantime, I also bathed her in enzym water and gave her Manuka Honey, same treatment as her Jie Jie. Besides all that, I also boiled the kim gin hua for them, which is a chinese herb that's claimed to be able to cure HFMD as well as H1N1. We didn't really separate them other than sleeping in two different rooms, because last time, despite all our efforts in separating them, SJ still got it. This time however, most of our attempts to separate them were futile, since SJ kept going near to her sister, she even slept under her sister's pillow to prevent her sister from sleeping!

Oh yes, the Manuka Honey that I bought for them, have active UMF of 24.5++. Hubby was rather concerned about this active ingredient, so he did a google search on that. What he saw alarmed us. It seems that my perception of the numbers was wrong - it stated that only 15-18++ is adequate, and anything higher than 20 would cause adverse reaction! The effects would be mostly on the digestive system. So, we decided not to give the kids that anymore. If you happen to know more about this, please kindly let us know ya!

The next morning, which is today, Sze Yi's fever has gone, but we still continued giving her paracetamol every 4-6 hours to avoid any sudden rise of temperature. She's back to normal until this afternoon when she complained her mouth was very painful. I noticed more spots coming out, and her ulcers prevent her from taking any solids. We applied oral daktarin gel on her, but when it couldn't really sooth her, we decided to apply some of the Manuka Honey on her again. After that, she could eat apples :)

I noticed that Sze Juin's ulcers were gone, and she's still doing well. But she's been sleeping the whole afternoon away (even as of now, that's why I could blog), so I'm a bit worried. I'm just hoping God will continue to protect my little girls for me.

Learning to be Independent

It's not too long ago that I once dreamt of being able to let my kids play on their own without me supervising them. My dreams turned into reality last month (March), this was actually a backdated post.

The girls playing the doctor game

(You can obviously tell who's the doctor, can you?)

I get to enjoy more time preparing lunch, or get the house chores done while being home alone with them. And it's fun to watch them play, laughed at their childish antics and be amazed at how matured they actually are!

Sze Yi is still as bossy as ever, while Sze Juin is as accomodating as ever. Is that why they can play together? Not really. Although I've seen SJ came crying to me because her Jie Jie always snatched her toys, I have also witnessed some events when the Jie Jie's the one who came crying to me, complaining that SJ bit her! Or smacked her! And the reason? She took her Mei Mei's toys :)

On another incident, I was amazed at how much I could trust SJ now. One day, I asked SJ to help me carry SY's school uniform for me when I fetched her back from Amah's place, since my hands were full. When we reached home, I asked her to put them back into the cupboard for me straightaway. Off she went into her Jie Jie's room. I never thought about it anymore as I went on to do my things. 

The next day, I was searching thru SJ's cupboard, and I found the set of school uniform in SJ's drawers. I thot she loved her Jie Jie's school uniform so much (she's been asking me to let her wear that on and off, even though she's only going to Amah's house and not school, or even as her pyjamas) until she put that in her own drawers. But I was wrong. Hubby told me that SJ did try to put the uniform in SY's cupboard (he's having a nap there, that's why he knew), but since SJ couldn't reach to open the cupboard, she went out. Hubby didn't know where she went. So it looks like she went to the other room to put the clothes in her own cupboard first, which she can reach!

Now, would you say my little toddler did things with some reasonings of her own?

A New Stunt

In my previous entry on the swimming breaktrhough, I didn't manage to take any pictures. Well, after that, we've been frequenting the pool quite often, mostly after work/school. So you could imagine how dark or cold the place was, and not too long later, I noticed that Sze Yi started to cough slightly and develop some phlegm. So we decided to give it a break, and stopped the swimming activity for awhile.

Until last Sunday, we decided to continue again. Since it's a weekend, we went earlier, around 5pm, when there's still some sunlight. This time, I remembered to bring my camera along. But since it's a phone camera, the quality is not as good. Still it's better than none.

The kids have progressed a lot, I would say. That's thanks to Daddy.

Sze Yi swimming on her 'own' in the adult pool

Sze Juin enjoying lying back on the waters, she's starting to dare let go too!

And guess what? SY learnt some new stunts too! She could not swim backwards, after watching how Daddy did it once. I didn't managed to capture that, but I got this one instead! She's swirling, whatever that's called! I wonder where she learnt this from...not from Daddy I'm sure!

The Milk Story Continues

Towards the end of March, MIL discovered that SJ took chocolate flavour fresh milk. That certainly came as good news to me, but over time, I'm worried if it would be a little too heaty for her, especially taken cold somemore. Still, it's better than none.

Then, last Saturday, we got a whole stack of samples from our Paed, so I decided to try it on her slowly.

Which is the Chosen One?

I asked her to choose one, and she surprised me by choosing Friso. By the way, I noticed her new style of posing - with her finger signing 1. I wonder where she picked this up.... 

Well, so I opened it in front of her, asked her if she wanted that in the bottle or cup, and she chose cup. She agreed to sit in the babychair while I made the milk in front of her. I poured a third of the milk powder into my own cup as well, and when I presented her cup to her, I told her I'll also drink mine and let's see who finished first. Well, to my delight, she took a sip, and then continued drinking that! She managed to half her cup, which was considered a great accomplishment to me. Well, after that, she started to lag a bit, dilly-dallied for a while, so I offered her the 'straw' version.

I ran out of straw, so here's my version of 'straw' cup (I didn't pour it into the original straw cup because the milk was slightly warm)

She didn't finished them all, but it was better than I expected. At least she didn't push it away like last time. In fact, I've tried the Pediasure chocolate flavour with her a few times before this, and she actually finished the whole cup and asked for seconds, but too bad, that only happened at home. In MIL's place, she never wanted to drink.

This, unfortunately also ends up the same. After I gleefully passed some samples to MIL for her to try during weekdays, she told me that SJ didn't want to drink it, even though she herself pick the brand (this time Anmum, even though I also included Friso in it). 

Well, I hope one day we'll break thru her resistant, which I hope, it's just a matter of time... 

Gone with the Wind

This Easter, we went to Church as a family again. Contrary to Mommy's expectation, I behaved better than Mei Mei. I brought a story book along, and Mommy thankfully noticed that I didn't actually read that out loudly. In fact, I was quite engrossed with my book for awhile, unlike Mei Mei who kept asking Mommy to take her see the fish, or go wee wee, etc. Luckily Mommy brought some bread along, so that kept us occupied for quite sometime while Mommy could listen to the sermon peacefully.

I'm the only one smiling...

After Mass, we went to G-Hotel for their Easter buffet lunch, and I got a couple of nice easter eggs. The next table Aunty gave it to me, and only then Mommy realized that there were actually hidden easter eggs everywhere for us to collect! I got two types, one is made of jelly, while the other is made purely of chocolates! These were placed neatly into the egg shell, and nicely decorated too. Too bad Mommy forgot to take a picture of that.

After the long sumptuous lunch, Mei Mei was tired, so we headed back for an afternoon nap. However, I can't sleep, so Amah took me shopping in QBM! Just me and her, while Mommy and Daddy took Mei Mei home. Amah bought 2 pair of shoes for me at one go, since my old ones were not that good anymore. Well, later, Daddy and Mommy and Mei Mei came to fetch us back, and guess what we did?

Can you guess what I'm doing?

Eh, Mei Mei's trying her hands on it too!

Yay, Daddy managed to get our kite up!

Can you guess which butterly is ours?

Like father, like daughters

Towards the end of the day, what did I learn?

If there's no wind, the kite won't go up.

Once the kite is up, it can come down again anytime,

All, subject to the wind's direction or strength,

Hmmm... is the kite's fate being destined by the wind?

This sure is fun, and I'll definitely go kite-flying again one day. Just that...I'm afraid my kite's not as good anymore. You see, I did 'something' to it, but luckily Daddy managed to fix it. Just, we're not sure if the performance would be as good. We'll see...