Too fast too furious 3

Time flies... very fast when you are very busy. Been 1 year and 2 months since the last post where we announced the arrival of Cadence Chong.

Now, Cadence is 1 year and 2 months old. Chloe is 4 years and 8 months old and Jasper is 6 years and 2 months old.

Jasper is going to start Primary 1 next year and we had a nervous time registering for the choice of school. Not that we are kiasu and aimed for the best, in terms of academic achievements but it's actually an unproven one yet with a unique approach that is suitable for Jasper.

We have since discovered that Jasper is at mild risk of dyslexia - learning difficulties in words. He can read a simple sentence yet. Childcare recommended him a specialist for 1-to-1 tuition twice a week and it's costing us a bomb, about $600 monthly to be exact.

Put him into a swimming class as well when I suddenly realized that at age 5 last year, he is still playing in the waddling pool and doesn't know how to swim or know the danger of a deeper pool! 1 lesson he didn't realized the danger and swallowed a big mouth of water. After that, the next few lessons, I have to literally forced him to attend. Luckily managed to get him to conquer that phobia after 2 months and now half-a-year later he is enjoying swimming lessons alot.

And we went through a big scare during his birthday celebration at a condo swimming pool. He happily swam to the middle of a big pool with just his little Styrofoam water gun while i was on the way with his swimming board. When I arrived, i saw him panicking and started shouting for help! Without a moment hesitation, I jumped into the pool and carry him to the side. With my wallet, car remote control and relatively new Nokia E71...

And we also highly suspect that he has ADD where short attention span, difficulties in focusing and IMPULSIVENESS are common behavioural problems.

Started him on Mandarin classes too just to make sure he as a Chinese is at least able to understand and speak basic mandarin.

As for Chloe, started her on ballet since she is too young to go for swimming lessons in a group. Next year, she most probably start swimming lessons too.

Cadence has started to stand on 2 legs and may very soon want to learn to walk as well...

Realized that there is a lot developments on Jasper but quite little on Chloe & Cadence? Yes, we have been focusing too much on Jasper on 2 reasons - firstly, he is at the appropriate age to start learning more skills & knowledge and secondly, he has ADD and dyslexia...

From now on, have to pay more attention to Chloe on developing her interests and start teaching Cadence the correct values...

Till the next update...

The hand

Jasper art of work. The hand full of germs bugs.

Announcing the arrival of Cadence Chong!

Been 8 months since the last post.

Busy making baby, LITERALLY...

Announcing the arrival of Cadence Chong, born on 28 June 2008 7.16 pm, the new addition to the Chong family.

GVJCC - Gary, Veron, Jasper, Chloe & Cadence Chong

Jasper just celebrated his 5th birthday and Chloe is 3 years and 6 months old. Fights, Hugs, Sharing, holding hands, playing together and having fun together. Well, most of the time is fighting with each other and normally Chloe would resort to hair pulling and her elder brother would be at her mercy cos she just wouldn't let go easily. And Jasper just loves teasing and bullying his younger sister.

As for Cadence, back to hourly feeding and nappy changing!

Differences between a boy & a girl

Girls are born to be more demure and gentle.

Boys are born to be more rough and active.

Girls are born to be sweet to Daddy.

Boys are born to be naughty to Mommy.

Girls are a punishment to Daddy for tackling her mommy away from grand-daddy.

Boys are a punishment to Mommy for choosing to be with his Daddy.

Kids Talk - 2

Just after dropping off Master C with Mrs C at the bus-stop opposite their workplace & childcare. He ran back to my car and signaled that he has something to say. I winded down the window and this is what he said to lectured me.

"Daddy, you must work so hard so that your boss can give you lots of air to make the ballons float up, ok?"


Air that can make ballons float up are more fun than having lots of money

Master C - 3 years 9 months old & Miss C - 2 years 2 months old

Time flies, from the last time I blogged about the 2 rascals, they have crossed many milestones in their developments.

Master C is quite a big boy now. He is way passed the terrible two & troublesome three stage. Now he understand when we tried to explain why he can't do certain things and why he can't always has he way.

But he still can't quit his reliance on his pacifier, however, he is not using it as often as before. So hopefully, but this year he can stop using it totally. And when he need to poot-poot, he still can't get used to doing it on the toilet bowl. The reason? The water will splash on his bottom when the poot-poot drop down... So he is still using the diapers to poot-poot.

Recently, Master C has graduated from the tricycle to the bicycle. MIL bought him a bicycle with those small training wheels at the back, and he doesn't need any conversion course to handle the bicycle.

And lately, he looks ready to forgo his afternoon nap. It takes him longer to fall asleep in the noon and even longer to fall asleep at night. And today, I have decided to let him skip his afternoon nap and see how long he can last till his night sleep. In the past, his eyes will closed automatically at about 5 - 6 pm when he skipped his nap time...

Finally, after 1 year plus, Master C had also fully adapted to his childcare environment and routine. And for the first time, during his childcare year end concert last Dec, he didn't get stage fright having to perform in front of a crowd. Well, seeing that your son able to dance and sing in front of a crowd is really something that would make you feel damn proud of. The worst thing, he still want to play with the toys & friends in the childcare and refused to leave with me when I reached the childcare to pick him up. Sometimes, we ended up being the last to leave!

Now Miss C is starting her terrible two stage. Full of nonsense, crying bouts and throwing of temper. Her language skill is much better than her brother, who can't speak well until 6 - 9 months in the childcare centre. Her vocabs is much better than her brother at this age and she can easily count from 1 - 10...

She is getting fiercer too, her brother mainly the victim of her ferocious hair-pulling and face-scratching tantrums... Yesterday, her brother kenna from her when she wanted to stop him from lying down on the kids sofa. She gave her a fierce scratch at his face and Master C ended up with big red scratches on the eyelid, nose and cheek.

And with this 2 rascals growing up, 1 fully self-reliance and another being less reliance on us for daily routines and care, now we are less tortured and able to eat, drink, bathe, go toilet without having to wait till their nap time!!!

Master C Development - 3½ years old

Master C has grown up and his favourite colour is still yellow although elephant was less mentioned nowadays as he preferred to be a tiger, lion, leopard or cheetah - Fierce animals.

His favourite sentence now is "Why, daddy?". Why does the sun goes down? Why is there rain? Why the cat can jump very high? Why we will grow up?

I hope he does not get too traumatized by my attempts to explain those things...

Kid's Talk 1

"Daddy, you must work hard, ok!" - so that I can earn many many many money to buy many many many toys...

Miss C development - 2 years old

Now I know why daddies love their daughters so dearly. Miss C has become so cute-sy and "teh" that it was impossible to get angry at her.

我注定会栽在她的手上! I am destined to be mesmerized by her!

Low platelet counts

After Master C experience in KKH, it's Miss C turn now. She was not suffering from low haemoglobin count but low platelet count...

It started very suddenly while Miss C was still recovering from a cold. She was on some medications like antibiotics and brufen for fever. However, all of a sudden she started having little red spots on both her legs. And those red spots turned into nasty blue-black bruises the next day. It didn't go away after a few days and she was getting more irritated easily so we had to bring her the A&E at KKH.

The doctor admitted her for observations and blood test as bruises looked suspicious. This time round it was Mrs C's turn to stay at the hospital as I was unable to take leave. My only advice for her was beware of the evil SNORER at night. And true to my prediction, there was an orchestrate of snorers in the 6-bedded ward.

Miss C had it worst than Master C as she was put on the drip plug and she had to be restrained to prevent her from pulling it out. She was brought to another room for the doctor and nurses to poked in the plug and she came back with red puffy eyes. The blood test result confirmed that she had low platelet count and hence the bruises did not go away easily. Usually, the main cause was dengue fever but she did not have any fever accompanying the low platelet count so they suspect it was due to a viral infection. She had to stay for 1 - 2 more days until the platelet count recovered to normal level. Fortunately, after 2 days, the platelet count went up, not fully but near to the minimum level so she was discharged. And 2 days after that, another blood test at polyclinic shown that the platelet level is in the normal range.

Thank god, it was nothing sinister!

The Hand, The Foot and The Mouth Disease - Kena-ed!

Last time, we only heard of it, but now Master C and Miss C kena it.

Master C caught the dreadful HFMD disease from Childcare and passed it to Miss C. It was quite a horrible experience.

Master C got it from his childcare and a visit to A&E at KKH confirmed it. He had to stay at home for 1 week! Our next immediate concern was Miss C and we had to immediately evacuate her and MIL to Mrs C's sister home. But alas, she had ulcers and blisters showing up a few day later too.

Mrs C cannot take leave from work as it was the peak period then so it was left with me and Master C for the whole of the week. 2 of us staying home most of the time and I was down with flu as well. Master C was not eating well as the ulcers in his mouth hurts even when he drinks. But we need not resort to ice or ice-cream treats as he is still feeding well with soup noodles or rice.

Night sleeping time was the worst part. Master C has been sleeping with MIL since he was a baby, and suddenly MIL was not there at night sleeping beside him. I had to explain that MIL was sick (she was also suffering from exhaustion as Miss C could not adapt to SIL place and cling on to MIL for 24 hours) and had to be away. He woke up almost every 1 - 2 hours crying for her and so he woke up for 4 - 5 times every night. Other than that, surprisingly, he was quite well behaved and would obediently follow my instructions.

Miss C, on the other hand, was torturing MIL at SIL place. She was unable to adapt to the new place and would cling onto MIL all the time - even at night. There was no way SIL or her husband could trick her away for MIL to rest. On the 3rd day there, MIL almost fainted and she had to push herself while sitting on the floor to the phone to call Mrs. C and SIL for help!

And just about that time, Miss C had ulcers and blisters popping out and thus she came back home on the 5th day too. It took almost 10 days for them to recover fully. The childcare was mandate to close as well as there are more than 7 cases of HFM, most of them in Master C age-group. Miss C had it worst, she keep saying: "pain-pain" while pointing to her mouth. The blisters on their hands and feet was not those very big but just little red dots that looked more like rashes.

The only consolation from this ordeal was that they would now have immunity to this strain of HFM disease.