Gong Xi Fa Cai!

It's finally Chinese New Year aka Gong Xi Gong Xi Day for my younger boys :P

The kids are enjoying CNY this year very much, from the buying of new year goodies to decorating the house with self drawn/made stuff. They were even involved in the buying of new year clothes, and packing the mandarin oranges into their little red paper bags. We had a good dinner last night, and even though the boys slept pretty late nearing 11pm, they woke up early this morning excited to be changing into their new year clothes and going out for visiting. I think they are also enticed by the fact that they can collect ang baos during CNY and it has money inside lol. Maybe to them it's a good time to get rich easily haha

All the best wishes to my friends and family and prosperous all the way!

The Stomach Virus Saga...

We have been striked by the stomach virus saga once again after a lapse of 2 years. Hao came home last Tuesday night from school complaining of giddiness and nausea. True enough, he started vomitting throughout the night. Brought him to see the doc after self medication didn't work, and he got 2 inserts from the doc. I had hoped that the vomitting will go away but it didn't and I had to give him another 2 on Wednesday night. That stopped the vomitting but the colic and stomach discomfort didn't go away. He was basically flat out and slept 80% of the time till Friday when he got better.

Remembering the same episode 2 years ago, I prayed hard that the other boys and Ashlynne wouldn't catch the bug. Well, my wish wasn't heard by god and Saturday morning, Min started throwing up at 6am. I quickly gave him the med but it didn't work for him. He went from a bubbly boy to a whiny and cranky one just in one morning. By noon, I did the insert for him and prayed for it to work. Not surprising, it didn't. I called the doc and brought him over in the evening as I didn't want to drag it thru the night with the horrible whiny child and constant vomitting. I was pretty sick of washing bedsheets and clothes with puke everywhere. The doc suggested a jab for him which I gladly took, not because I liked to see him in pain from the jab but simply that I didn't want to see him being tortured by the horrible virus seeing how it affected Hao for so many days. He was pretty worn out after the jab and play a liitle at home and went to sleep. His fever started in the middle of the night but I didn't want to pile him with so much med so decided to wait till the dawn break before deciding if he can take the med. By this morning he was a little better and could at least retain the water he drank. That was good news for us as the doc had warned that if he did not get better after the jab, he recommend to send him to hospital to be put on drip to prevent dehydration. Gave him some pear but he puked again. Was worried the jab didn't work but decide to observe him further. He fell back asleep on the floor (cooler for him since he was still feverish) and woke up near noon and was super cranky from the fever. We tried to entertain him with Wii and it worked for a while before he fell back to sleep again. When he woke up mid afternoon, I decided not to wait further and inserted half a suppository for his fever since he couldn't stomach the med. Thank god it worked and after he slept for another hour or so, he woke up a happier child. After his fever subsided, he passed 2 rounds of motion and was definitely less sick than earlier that day. He began to ask for food and started to eat little by little. Thank goodness the food stayed in him and he didn't puke out anything. I guess his recovery and metabolism must be working super hard and thus he needs food faster than before. We managed to curb his cravings, worrying that he might overeat and throw up again. He is sleeping peacefully now and I hope he'll get a good night sleep and wake up feeling better tomorrow.

The saga will continue as I am terribly worried that Ee will catch the bug too. Whatever the case, we will know it in few days' time. Am crossing my fingers and toes and hair and whatever I can cross and pray that Ee won't get it. If he does, I have already decided that i'll head straight to the clinic and give him the jab than drag the whole episode all over again. PRAY PRAY PRAY...

First step towards my 2010 resolution!

In case I have not mentioned, my new year 2010 resolution is to wean Min off nursing :P As I have mentioned in my previous blog entry, we finally got Hao to move into his own room. So far, he's enjoying his new found privacy and freedom. It's kinda telling him that he's all grown up and he should be more responsible now too. With that, I've also accomplished the first step towards my resolution, and that's moving Min out of our bed! Since Hao moved to his room, Min has successfully moved to Hao's old bed, sharing the room with Ee. He's been adapting to his "new" bed so far, and has established his own routine now. 9pm at night he will brush his teeth and get ready for bed. Then we'll read 1 or 2 books together before I lie with him to sleep. He still need to nurse to sleep now, which I am perfectly ok with it, but just that whenever he wakes up in the middle of the night, I'll try not to nurse him. Hopefully he'll outgrow the habit of nursing whenever he wakes up at night and has to look for me. So far, there hadn't been any results, but time will tell. At least I have achieve the first step of moving him out of our bed. Hubby can now sleep in peace at night without Min kicking him in the bed. The only bad thing for me is that I've moved into Min's bed LOL as half of the time at night he'll wake up and scream for me....still need some time to change that. Hopefully once he stop nursing at night, he'll stop waking up and look for me, and I can have my beauty sleep and day time sanity back! Then, I'll proceed to weaning him off nursing! Wish me plenty of luck please!

1.5 weeks gone...50.5 weeks more to go!!

It's been 1.5 week since 2010 started. There's been some changes around the house since the year started. Firstly, Hao had moved to his own room, which is previously the guests/spare room in the house. He moved to the big bed, had his own study table set up and has a whole wardrobe all to himself. It's part of telling him that he's grown up and will need his own space to do his stuff. Might seem a bit unfair to Ee and Min in future but too bad we only have 2 rooms for them to share and right now, Hao needs it more than them...Here's the look of his new room..

The bed is actually an improved version from his old bunk bed which we moved from the old house into the guest room. The study table set is a Kinderfun ergonomic table set which we got 2nd hand from our neighbour, who happened to want to sell it off for a nominal price. We got it real cheap compared to the new sets and it's really in a very good condition. The wooden toy box also came from the old house and we used it to keep Hao's toys in there since Day 1 and I didn't bear to throw it out when we moved. Now Hao can keep his school bag and other personal stuff in there and not throw it all around the room. My sis bought the CARS mat when she went to Hong Kong last year and Hao loved it and specifically wanted it to be in his room. Overall, Hao is very satisfied with his room and we are glad that he finally has his own space and a proper place to study (away from prying eyes of hubby lol). Hope this will help Hao do better in his studies this year.

Hao got into Athletics for his CCA this year. We were rather disappointed as his first choice was badminton, while Athletics was second choice. The timing is pretty bad on every thursday morning 8.50am to 10.30am. Will have to send him to and fro for his training every Thursday morning. By the time he gets back, he'll only have enough time to bath and have his lunch and then back to school again for lessons. We are not keen to let him stay in school after his training as we are not sure if he has any company and also he'll have to lug his athletic gear the whole day too. Will see how things go. For his swimming, the bad news is that his swimming coach has decide to stop giving lessons. So now we have to look for a new coach for him. He really enjoys his lessons and I saw that he wrote in his diary that he would love to continue his lessons and be a swimming champion one day. Am really glad that he, for once, has a passion in an activity (not counting Wii or computer games), so we will let him continue his lessons.

This year Ee is in K1. With him older, we wanted to enrol him in some extra lessons since Hao had attended lego lessons when he was Ee's age. Too bad the lego school has closed down when we enquired the last time. Ee is a good observer and thinker who can focus well in his work so we decided to put him into the JLTP lessons organised by his school. It's an one hour lesson after his class on friday, so we will fetch him later in school. It's basically a program which focus on teaching kids to think out of the box and use more creativity in their thinking than the normal school cirriculum. Hope he enjoys it and gain something from it...

Goodbye 2009 and Heloo 2010!

2010 is finally here! Hao was pretty disappointed that 2009 had gone by, as welcoming 2010 would mean that school will reopen soon and he will have to wave goodbye to the good old time of play more computer games at home and lazing around the couch. Coming up are the CAs and SAs and homework and more homework. Poor kids :P

As I look back to 2009, which wasn't really a bad year for us, reality struck me that 2010 will be an even more challenging year for me. We barely made it financially for 2009 and 2010 is a big question mark for us. Of course we have enough to eat and spend, but savings are minimal with hubby's single income supporting us, and 2010 might be a big change in his career path, meaning more uncertainties and unknown..it's pretty scary but still I am thankful for what we have now :) For now, we'll just have to gear up for the new year and getting prepared for school and life back to normal after the holidays LOL

1 more week to 2010!

I've been lazy and busy for the past few weeks. I've started to look after Ashlynne (altho it's more like on and off since sis still clearing her leave on and off) and thank god she's such a gem and easy to look after. The boys love to see her everyday at home and will ask about her if she's not coming over. There's more or less a routine set now and I would think it'll not be difficult to transit when school holidays are over and sis starts her work formally lol.

Just as I was feeling proud of myself being able to look after 4 kids at home, my period was late for a week and during that one week, the question keep popping in my head: what if I was pregnant again? I was pretty confident I wasn't, but deep deep down inside I was pretty scared that I might accidentally be! The good thing was that it came a week late *whew* and I was never so happy that my period came :P The last thing I would want is another baby now as life is getting easier with Min already 2. I think I am getting tired of babies...of course except when they aren't mine and they go back home every night just like baby Ashlynne lol

It's 2 days to Xmas and another week to a brand new year 2010. We've truly enjoyed this school holidays as I had more time on my hands to spend with Hao and Ee when Min is in school and Ashlynne is not here. I took them to the library, shopping, sumptous breakfast without fuss etc. Truly amazing time to rebond with them. I think I'll be looking forward to the next school holiday. By then Ashlynne will be nearly 1 year! Time really flies.

As year 2010 approach, it's time for new resolutions and goal settings. I think for next year, I'll not push myself too hard and try to relax a bit more. I have always been pushing myself to be too perfect and wanting to over achieve in everything around the house and sometimes it drives myself crazy and getting so uptight. It's time to let my hair loose a little next year and go with the flow. New challenges for the new year. It will be an interesting year!

Nearing end 2009!

Its been 2 weeks into the school holidays and I haven't had much time to update my blog. Of course the main reason is the kids creating havoc and chaos at home and also because we took 4 days off to drive up to KL and I must say it was a good trip with the kids. Surprisingly the boys were very well behaved during the 4 hrs trip and didn't fuss too much. All was excited to get to KL asap when travelling up, and they were so exhausted that they slept most of the way back home. As expected, we covered most places that we can bring them to play and left no time for us (me and hubby) to do any shopping or leisure walking around. It is becoming a yearly event that we will travel up to KL every year end for a few days' stay and I am starting to wonder if my kids are travelling too much and being too pampered for that! So far, we've been to Bali, Bangkok, Brisbane, Beijing, Japan, Hong Kong and KL, and will be planning to go to the States or Europe side in the near future. In a way we are very happy that they get to experience the different cultures, seasons and living experiences in different countries in real life and they've come to love travelling to places that they've never been to and will tell us where they would like to go in the future trips. That aside, the expense issue is getting bigger and bigger yearly as they grow older and no more getting concession pricing for most stuff and we are travelling further and further away from home to more expensive places. But I guess all is worth as it may come to a day when they will stop travelling to us and start going with their friends, spouse and own families.

Its nearing the end of 2009. Time really flies and soon 2009 will be history for us. Stepping into 2010 signifies more responsibilities and challenges for everyone in the family, particularly hubby and Min. Of course Hao has his P2 work to overcome and Ee has his K1 work to progress to. The bigger challenge will be settling Min into his preschool, even though he has started for a week and a half now, but separation anxiety is still a big issue for him. Hope he will overcome it soon. As for hubby, he needs to plan for his career move and realign his goals. As for me, I've started looking after Ashlynne, who is a gem and cutie pie, and hope I'll be able to cope with her once the new school term starts too. 4 kids in a house ~ it's going to be a real chaotic challenge!