Sorry for the absence

Wow, I did not blogged for a week and a half!

First, Jonathan was down with a high fever. Last Mon, I thought the weather was quite nice and brought him out for some time in the garden. He sat on his bike while I pushed him wherever he wanted to go. He didn't perspire much, but I still wiped him down and let him rest for a while before bathing him.

But by 8.45pm, Simon noticed Jonathan was running a fever of 38.3! Gave him a suppository as he didn't want to drink his milk that has been mixed with paracetamol. At 2am at night, while I was taking hourly temp checks, his fever went up to 39.1! Another stronger suppository was given.

Brought him to the doc the next day together with Jillian who was due for her immunisation jab. Luckily we had made an appointment otherwise, Jon will have to wait very long. The fever lasted from Mon night till around Thu, with the temps going up in the evenings and nights. Poor Jon had no mood for milk. But I made sure he drank his honey or Ribena drinks. He lost about 1.5kg.

Towards the end of his bout of fever, I felt myself aching all over and having a slight temp. I said I must be strong and not fall ill since I have to take care of Jillian who's only 3+months young. Then on Fri, I had to take that ONE piece of durian and rambutan before dinner. Needless to say, I came down with fever that night.

Sat was a delirious day where my fever hovered around 38+ degree Celsius. One thing good was that I really slept whenever Jillian slept....the whole day! I felt better on Sunday, but decided not to go to church. I don't want to spread the virus to the kids in the Cry Room!

I only felt much much better on Mon morning, but just to be sure, I only stopped taking my panadol Extend in the afternoon. Even then, I watched that I didn't take any heaty food. When handling Jillian, I made sure I washed my hands and wore a jacket so I won't come into contact with her (she's usually swaddled with a cloth or blankie). I really wished I had gloves I tell you! I also prayed that the virus would stop with me. I didn't want anyone else in the house getting it. So many adults and 2 other babies- one-year old Mabel and 1+month young Yee Qi!

Another positive thing through this episode: I took the opportunity to have ice-cream! Cold, creamy, nourishing (milk product what!).

I didn't blog after that coz I just wanted to spend my time with my kids.

Simply red

Managed to do a layout of a photo that was taken more than a year ago during Jon's first birthday. Bad mommy!

Used my fave Kraft cardstock and used mainly red embellies, and stamped in red too. Boy was I fat in this photo! But Jon was so cute at that age....I missed when he was cute and not naughty. Now he's cute and very naughty!

Did a simple tag for a friend's daughter who likes to read.

I am trying to find a nice photo of Jillian to scrap. But most of the photos are taken with my camera with low light, since we're trying to create an ambience where she can sleep and rest well, so may need a little editing (hub's area). Must ask him to make time on Sun (oops, realised it's Sun now since passed midnight) to edit and print some for me. Otherwise, Jillian's album has only 1 layout!

Jillian is almost 3months young

I would love to take more photos of Jillian. But in between feeding her and taking care of Jon, most times Jillian is asleep in the sarong. Not very nice to take photos.

In these latest photos of her, grandma happened to be free and with an extra pair of hands, I quickly snapped away. My PHD (press here, dummy) camera doesn't take the best photos indoors and even more so with the curtains drawn so the children can sleep better with reduced light and noise. Must ask hubs to take photos with his SLR camera on Sun.

Bath times are her fave times. She's so long that when she kicks in the tub, her head actually hits the other end of it.
Being burped. Looks like a koala bear
In wide-eyed wonder

Cousins for playmates

Jonathan enjoys playing with his cousin...lots.
With younger cousin Mabel who stays with us. In the mornings, he will run around the living room, encouraging her to chase him in her walker. But when she comes near, he will panic and start screaming happily or angrily. Sometimes, he will even resort to crawling away.

You may ask how's that? Shouldn't he be running away instead? Well, haven't you notice that in horror movies, the victims are usually paralysed with fear and cannot run away? In this case, Jon is so scared of his cousin catching him that he can't run, only crawl! LOL!
With older cousin Megan. He likes playing with her. Sometimes she likes playing with him, sometimes not (coz Jon can be quite rough). It wasn't like that previously. She didn't want to play with him. Now, they like playing together in the hour plus in the evenings when Megan comes over to get her mom.

Now with baby sister Jillian and another baby girl cousin Yu Qi, Jon is seriously outnumbered!

A close call

I had my lunch late and was so hungry that I failed to see a bone in the curry fish head. As if in slow motion, I could feel myself swallowing the bone and realising it was stuck in my throat. I gasped for air and tried to swallow it down. MIL saw me and told me to try to puke it out! Big mistake! I panic even more and the bone got lodged deeper in my throat.

It was the most horrible feeling, and I prayed asking God for help to get it out! I am too young to die and certainly not by a stupid fish bone! I stopped trying to puke it out and MIL said I had better ask Simon to bring me to the hospital.

I calmed myself down and went up to the bedroom to changed. I paced my breathing and called Simon on the phone thinking he went out with his cousin. Actually, they were in the study. As I changed, I calmed down and at the same time, tried to swallow the bone down. It was so difficult to swallow even my saliva.

I asked MIL to take care of my babies and went out to the car. Then Simon's cousin said to me very calmly, "Relax." I stared at his big eyes and did just that. I stopped thinking about the fish bone. And it was gone.

I stopped in my tracks and told everyone, "It's gone." They all stared at me. One minute, I was in pain and the next, I was back to normal. Simon asked me if I was sure the bone was gone. I nodded my head and said, "Ah Ping told me to relax and I did and it's gone." Everyone erupted in laughter and we went back inside the house.

Did I go back to my lunch? Yes, after I took a nice bath. And I checked every spoonful of fish or curry for bones! What an espisode.

We found out that it was....

...an ear infection! Sticky, smelly discharge in Jillian's left ear.


MIL cleaned her ear after bath, before we were to go see the ENT specialist and using the baby cotton bud, dug out a gooey mess! Yikes! There was some of the sticky fluid, but we left it in the ear so the ENT specialist could see it.

The ENT specialist confirmed it was an ear infection. He gave a thorugh check in Jillian while I carried her and sat on this high fancy chair. He gave a five-day course of anti-biotic and ear drops. When we paid the bill and collected the med, we realised while he charged RM180, he gave RM150 discount. Guess we discovered what was bothering Jillian and just needed him to confirm it.

You know, once the problem is diagnosed, we have peace of mind. My MIL said the worse thing to happen to a young baby is an ear infection. She was so worried. But I promised to watch her carefully and give her the med and drops. It should be alright.

Thanks everyone for your concern.

What could it be?

I just fed Jillian and rocked her gently to sleep. Took 45mins. My right arm is tired. Initially I thought she was asleep after her feed and put her down in her crib. But she jolted up and started crying a little. I quickly and gently carried her up and rocked her. No effect. I then took the bottle and gave her what's left of her milk. That soothed her and then plus gently rocking, she finally fell asleep again.

What happened?

It started on Tue evening. After cleaning Jill up, I fed her. She gave this small whimpering cry which proceeded to a loud and intense one. Tried to rock her to sleep, but no avail. Gave her pacifier, carried her in my arms and rocked her. But anything I did seemed to make it worse!

Finally she got tired of crying and closed her eyes. I put her into the sarong, but she woke up. I tried to rock her in the sarong, petted her buttocks, making soothing noises....finally she slept. I went to have my dinner.

Within 10mins, she started crying again. I went to her and made soothing sounds again. But her crying got louder and louder. I thought perhaps she was still hungry and went to make some milk. MIL finished her dinner and came out to help me.

That night around 2.30am, I felt warm and woke up suddenly. My instincts were right, Jillian had woken up too. Time to give her her night feed. She was impatient and started crying again. But it was different from her usual hungry cry. An intense and loud whimpering. I thought must be due to her hunger plus the air-con was a little wonky...hot even though it was 24 degree Celsius and on auto fan mode. So I lowered the temp to 23 plus 3 fan speeds. But the air-con took quite a while to adjust.

After finishing her milk, I tried to burp Jill and changed her diapers as it was full. Ooooh, not happy at all! Jillian cried. So much until Simon woke up, which is very rare. Having said that, he went right back to bed again.

It was an intense half hour and I believed I was hot from all that crying!

On Wednesday morning, Jillian was alright. She woke up in her crib and babbled quietly to herself. I carried her up and gave her some milk. Then Jon woke up. I put Jillian down and gave Jon his milk before continuing feeding Jill. She was OK about it. She then decided she didn't want any more and I put her on the bed. She smiled at me, so I spent a few mins talking to her. What a contrast from last night!

But when grandma bathed her, she cried again! Then after lunchtime, she was crying again during her feed. She drank a little ilk and then pushed the bottle away. I gave her the pacifier and she took it. Just when she had stopped crying, I tried to give her milk again and she cried. I was wondering if any part of her body could be hurting, coz MIL said I could have accidentally hurt her when I changed her out of her onesie on Tue night.

After discussing, we decided to ask Simon to come back and bring Jillian to the doc.

We didn't have an appointment with the paed, so we waited. Again she was all angel. Doc gave her the thorough check and said it could be colic, as it happened first in the evening. But she cried for like 5mins each time and no longer. Anyways, we were to give her the med an hour before 7pm (the time she Starting all the intense crying). Tomorrow, we are to collect urine sample to test for urine infection. If the test is negative of any indications, it could be an ear infection. Then we would have to go to the hospital to clean the ear wax and let the ENT specialist check it out.

We reached home and I shared with MIL the doc's prognosis. When MIL was cleaning her in the evening, she checked Jillian all over again. She realised Jill cried when she pressed against the area above her ears. so she said we had better to go to the ENT specialist tom.

Praying it isn't so serious and that Jill will sleep properly tonight, and I will try to make it as comfortable for her as possible. Thankfully all the rocking was good for her...but not my arm, LOL!