Parenting

Scrap Credits
Spring Forward mini kit from Eva Kipler
Netter’s Alphas from Scarlet Heels
100% Tampons apostrophe & brackets from [ v.vv ]
Doodles: Doodle Me Big from Mikkel Paige Originals
Boxed words from Chantal

My dearest darling Ethan boy,

Daddy came back from India last Saturday night. After four nights away from us, you were able to hug him once again. Daddy took the cab home from the airport because he didn’t want Mommy to go to the trouble of fetching you to the airport at night and all. I had been telling you that Daddy will be home soon, and while you were enjoying the videos of yourself on Mommy’s cellphone, our doorbell suddenly rang. You climbed down from the couch, curious more than eager, and followed Mommy to the door. The moment you saw Daddy, I could feel your emotions in your eyes…how much you missed him and you even had to do a double take to make sure it was indeed Daddy. I had to reassure you over and over again that it was Daddy, because at first you didn’t look like you believed me. It had, after all, been days that you had not seen him.

Last Tuesday, while you were still at Ah Poh’s, Mommy fetched Daddy to the airport. He had travelled to India on a short business trip. I asked you not to worry, because he won’t be away for long, and he will be back on Saturday.

Daddy told you the night before he left that he would be away from home for a while and you pretended to ignore him then. But on the morning of the day he was to leave, when he carried you to Ah Poh’s door, said buh-bye and told you to be a good boy while he was away, you grunted and let out a whine of despair. Although I know you still do not know how to express yourself in words, I can feel that you missed him. In fact, we both did miss him a lot, didn’t we, Ethan boy?

Please don’t be angry with Daddy for being away. It was only for a few days anyway and did you see how happy he was to hold you in his arms again? He hasn’t been travelling for a long while now, the last time being when you were about 3 or 4 months’ old. You probably didn’t realize it then. But you have been a good boy, and I can tell in your eyes that you were looking for him for the past few days. You looked ever so confused when you could not find him anywhere at all. Well, he is home now, so you go knock yourself out having fun with him, yeah?

The night that he left, it was just you and me home alone. Daddy had suggested that I have my dinner and my shower first before picking you up, and I thought that was an excellent idea. It allowed me more time to spend with you, without running the risk of being lethargic.

It’s a good thing too that your Ah Ma and Kong Kong from Ipoh were here from the second night onwards. They miss you so much too, you know. I’m so glad you had a lot of fun with them both.

Since Daddy returned, you have made his day with all your giggles and funny antics. The Sunday morning after he came back home, when Daddy woke up, I asked you to give Daddy a good morning hug, and you ran over to him, put your arms around his neck and gave him a kiss on the cheeks. I thought that was simply adorable.

All my love,
Mommy

Cloth diapers, to be precise! 🙂 

I’ve been putting off my cloth diapering plan for Ethan for such a long time.  My original plan was to have him fully on cloth diapers as soon as possible.  And I am ashamed to say that I have been so bad at keeping to that.  Last year, I bought him four pieces of megacute cloth diapers, but that was about it.  Sometimes they would leak because of the way I put them on him and I would be frustrated.  So I kept putting my plan off.  And then lately, the diapers began to stink big time.  Even after just an hour of putting them on, the smell was rather revolting.  Which led me to suddenly remember that I probably need to strip wash them.

And strip wash the diapers I did.  After that, the diapers worked perfectly again and my love for cloth diapers was reignited!  And thanks to so many many emails back and forth with my diaper guru, Christene, I have learnt so many additional terms and jargons about cloth diapers to educate me for life!  I recently ordered more diapers, different brands this time, just to have a variety and feel of all of them, and of course to satisfy my insatiable appetite.

I got two diapers from Sandra for starters.  The first one is a My Precious Baby fitted diaper, with side snaps.  Christene recommended this for the heavy wetter, i.e. Ethan, and I absolutely LOVE this diaper!  My Precious Baby diapers are handmade diapers made by a WAHM in the USofA.  These gorgeous diapers are made from velour, which is 80% cotton and 20% polyester, and they look so LUSH!  My Precious Baby diapers have 2 layers of velour and 3 layers of thirsty hemp fleece sewn into the diaper.  There’s even an additional piece of soaker included for the sake of the heavy wetter.  What I really love about this diaper is how the colors and prints coordinate beautifully.  I ordered the purple and orange combo diaper with a zoo animal print soaker that matches the diaper perfectly.  I was fortunate that Ethan, being of small built, can still fit into an M size, because it was the only size available in this color combination.

Can you tell how adorable they look?  I fell in love with it instantaneously!  And I was pleased to note how trim the fit is!  Even with the diaper cover (fitted diapers need a cover by the way, but it is really up to individual preference), it still doesn’t look bulky.  This is really a diaper which looks absolutely gorgeous and is fully functional at the same time!

Then I also got one Drybees pocket diaper for Ethan.  These are fastened with velcro, so I wanted to evaluate them before I got some more to let Mrs Tan use during the time Ethan is with her.  I’ll have to say I am reasonably satisfied with this diaper.  It’s not as smooth and soft as Bumwear though, but putting it on is a breeze.  Unfortunately this has leaked a couple of times already, and I am now determining if it is because I got it in too large a size for Ethan.  One thing I have to say though…Drybees diapers come in fantastic prints!

Lastly, because I wanted to make up the minimum order of RM200 to qualify for free shipping, I also ordered some Wahmies cloth wipes, also thanks to Christene’s recommendation.  There were so many pretty prints to choose from that I had a hard time zeroeing in on my final selection.  I plan to use these as much as possible to replace the wet wipes, and in fact, while waiting for my order to arrive, I had already begun using wet cloth hankies when we go out, instead of using wet wipes.  These Wahmies cloth wipes though, are really softer compared to the conventional hankies, because these have flannel on the print side and soft cotton sherpa terry on the other.  What luxury! 

And now, I am excitedly awaiting another batch of diapers to arrive, all the way from USA, this time!  Yes, I know some people might say it will be time for Ethan to start toilet training soon, but why delay putting him on cloth diapers?  Besides, I am only now starting him on the big business toilet training, so he will definitely still need to be on diapers.  In any case, it sure feels good going green!

This evening when I went to pick Ethan up from Mrs Tan’s after work, I was aghast to discover that the swell under his eye as a result of *something* that bit him had become so much worse.  Ethan didn’t look like he was bothered with his swollen right eye though (as you can see from the pictures), and every time he smiled, his right eye would close up.  It was quite pitiful to see him with the swollen eye, although it was apparent that he wasn’t in any form of pain.  Nevertheless I decided to err on the side of caution and take him to see Dr Jessica, who coincidentally was on night duty tonight.

I had to take Ethan to the hospital on my own tonight because Pete had a dinner function with his company.  I grabbed a quick dinner at home and rushed to the hospital (okay, I drove carefully… :P) .  We were fourth in line … not too bad.  Guess where our boy insisted on going up and down on?  Yep… the escalators!  Since I was the only one there with him, I had no choice but to bring him up and down and at the same time, keep a lookout for when it was our turn.

Finally we were called in but the doc had so much trouble checking him.  He simply wouldn’t open his eyes for her to check them.  Dr Jessica prescribed Piriton syrup, which was an immediate relief for the allergic reaction, and told me to continue applying the fucicort thrice daily. We were also to keep monitoring his temperature in case it shot up.  I requested the nurse to help me feed the Piriton to Ethan since I was sure I would not be able to do it on my own at home.  Surprisingly all of the syrup went in, although Ethan put up a struggle.

I then took him back home, gave him a warm shower and got him ready for bed.  I waited till he fell asleep before I applied the fucicort.  I pray that he will be all better tomorrow morning after a good night’s sleep tonight.

We should have known. Ethan hardly ever overeats. And that first incident of vomiting turned out to be the beginning of a nightmare for all of us.

Chronology of Events

Thursday
8:30p.m. vomited, with slight diarrhoea. Vomitus contained the rice he had taken for dinner.
Breastfed him and gave him a little bit of water. He fell asleep soon after.

Friday
2:30a.m. Woke up and vomited on our bed and on me. There were a few grains of rice, more milk and water in the vomitus.
Cleaned ourselves and our bed up, fed him breastmilk and he slept.

7:00a.m. Woke up, coughed a little and then vomited again. On the bed and on the floor.
Cleaned him up and discovered he had diarrhoea too.
Fed him water, breastmilk and a few grains of Rice Krispies.

8:30a.m. Diarrhoea again.
He drank some Yakult.

9:00a.m. Vomitted all the Yakult out. We all rushed to the hospital after that.

Thankfully we didn’t have to wait too long for the doctor that day, and Ethan was quite happy playing with the toys in Dr Jessica’s office. Doctor diagnosed Ethan as suffering from acute gastroenteritis, caused by a virus, possibly the Rotavirus. She said it was not food poisoning, because he did not have a fever. His persistent vomiting and diarrhoea had also resulted in a weight loss of about 1kg!!! He was only 9.9 kilos when he was weighed in. I was very worried about Ethan’s inability to keep food in though, and he was given a dramamine shot to help prevent that. After the shot was administered, we waited in the pediatric ward area for 30 minutes before giving him the oral rehydration salts (ORS) mixture (Dramamine takes 30 minutes to take effect). Well, of course he didn’t want the ORS mixture, and would only take breast milk. Doctor told me to give him only the fore milk for now, so I took him to the nursing room and breastfed him there. After that, we waited for a while for the rice water to be ready. We had ordered some from the hospital and it was one of the fluids that was recommended for Ethan. He didn’t really like it though, took a few sips of it and pushed it away.

Pete and I decided to tarpow Mc-D’s for lunch on the way back, and our boy fell asleep in the car too. But he suddenly woke up when we reached the Mc-D’s in Greenlane, fussed and cried and then threw up again! Luckily I had asked the nurse at the hospital for a plastic bag just in case he vomited. I called Dr Jessica when we reached home, and she said that we would need to bring Ethan in for an intravenous drip if his vomiting still persisted. We certainly didn’t want that! I told the doc we think he vomited because he was lying down instead of standing vertically up, so she said to give it a few hours first.

Poor boy… we took him back and let him rest for a bit. He didn’t really want to drink anything (we were to try offering him fluids like rice water, ORS, 100-Plus or fore breastmilk, but he would only take water and breastmilk), and we could tell that it was the phobia of throwing up whatever he took in. Then he suddenly decided that he wanted Yakult, so I gave him some, and then later on, he suckled himself to sleep again.

Unfortunately as he was sleeping in my arms, he woke up crying and threw up again. This time, I already had a container ready just in case. I tried to rinse Ethan’s mouth with water to get rid of the vomit smell, but he would not let me. I was very worried about Ethan’s condition then, I didn’t want to see him suffer like that, but still I really could not stand the thought of him on the IV drip. It was already 3:30p.m. at that time, and Pete said we ought to give Ethan another chance. And I am thankful we did.

He began to get better and better after that. He fell asleep in my arms at about 5p.m. and I was careful to prop his body up at an angle so that he felt better. I was literally counting the minutes to the 4-hour time frame that he did not vomit. At about 7:30p.m. it marked the 4-hour vomit-free duration, so I tried giving him some Rice Krispies which he gingerly ate. We were still wary about the fact that he could throw up any time but we were glad that he was improving.

He was still having diarrhoea though but we pray that he will recover from that soon.

I asked Mommy for permission to put up another post as a guest blogger since it is a post for her birthday.  And I am so glad she said okay 🙂

Last Saturday, Daddy, Mommy and I went to the E&O hotel for Mommy’s birthday eve lunch.  They had seafood fried rice that day and I was very eager to show off my self-feeding skills.  I get a kick out of eating using the spoon all by myself, and feel a sense of accomplishment when Daddy and Mommy tell me “Good Boy!”  As you can see, I enjoyed myself very much and was very reluctant to leave the place.  I love to play with the window sills and run around the restaurant.  After lunch, Daddy, Mommy and I took a short leisurely stroll by the sea.  But it was only for about 5 minutes or so, then I ran back inside, with Mommy and Daddy hot on my heels.  Some good exercise I gave them after the buffet eh? 🙂

On Sunday (Mommy’s birthday), I woke up and gave Mommy the sweetest smile ever and hugged her.  Then I asked her to go out of the room with me because I just poo-pooed in my pants. 

That very same day, Ah Ma and Ah Kong from Taiping came to Penang to visit together with Kor-kor.  We went to Maple Gold for lunch with Ah Chek and Aunty Christine also.  Here, I had the opportunity to show off my drumming skills with a pair of chopsticks.  Then I had yummy steamed rice with tofu and vege for lunch.  I bet Daddy and Mommy must have been very proud of me because I finished about one bowl of rice! 🙂  Of course, when I found that feeding myself with the spoon took a very long time, I decided to use my hands instead.

Mommy had a birthday cake too.  Daddy was singing a Happy Birthday song really loudly but I haven’t learnt it yet.  I hope to be able to sing that song next year for Mommy.

We must have gone through almost all types of infant cough medication, all in the fervent hopes of making Ethan recover completely from his cough. It breaks my heart so to hear him coughing, because his cough is of the forceful kind, and he sounds like he is suffering whenever he coughs.

First, we gave him Rhinatiol from Dr Jessica. After a few days when there was no improvement, we switched to MucoFlux, which was also prescribed by Dr Jessica. Two days into the medication and there was still no sign of recovery. Pete and I then decided to try the Vicks method. No, no, it is not the application of Baby Vicks to his chest and back (we already do that every day anyway). The Vicks method is one that has been circulating the internet, suggesting that to cure a cough, all we need to do is to rub some Vicks liberally on the soles of his feet and put on a pair of socks. All this we did when he was in dreamland. Although it reduced the cough slightly, Ethan was still coughing. We did it for 2-3 days. Well, perhaps it was because we used Vicks Baby Rub instead of (adult) Vicks. (The regular adult Vicks was to be administered on kids aged 2 and above only).

The next thing we tried was aromatherapy. I quickly bought a bottle of Magnolia essential oil, rubbed 2 drops vigorously in my palm and applied it to Ethan’s front and back, and also his throat area. There was some level of improvement in his recovery rate, and his cough appeared to faze off, but we were not satisfied, because he was not completely healed yet.

So when push came to shove, we decided to turn to TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine). Charlotte‘s mom had told me that she gave Charlotte Pak Poh when she was coughing, and it cured her cough within 2 days. On top of that, Charlotte did not need to be forced to take the medicine. It was worth a shot. Such is the desperation of a parent. So we got a box consisting of 6 powder vials of Pak Poh from Eu Yan Sang. I used just one teaspoon of warm water to make the Pak Poh mixture for Ethan, tried giving it to him, but he rejected it immediately. I then tried mixing it with his favorite yogurt, but although he took a little bit, he was not very happy when his taste-buds told him that the bitter-tasting Pak Poh marred the taste of his yogurt. We had no choice but to shoot the mixture straight down his throat using the syringe.

And now after SIX torturous sessions, Ethan is finally medicine-free, and has been so for about a week now. He still coughs slightly, but is getting better every day. I’m praying and praying and praying…. We’ll leave it to his antibodies to do the work then.