26 April 2007

The "old" Ash is back !!!!

Yippeee !!! Ash is back to her usual self ! She was chatty all the way home and drank almost all the water in her flask and even asked for more !!

When we got home, she allowed us to put our stuff away, get dinner ready. She fed herself yoghurt with avacado, with a little help from mummy of course, after that she undressed herself and allowed daddy to give her a quick shower.

Before bedtime, she even played with daddy a simple game on the bed. 1,2,3,4.......5 and drop back onto the pillows.

Yes !!! Ash is back !!!!!!!

24 April 2007

Cranky

Ash finally overcame her fever yesterday, so we sent her in to the Centre this morning. Viv and I had been taking too many days leave recently.
She managed to finish off her breakfast of cereal and avocado, which was already more than what she had eaten the last 3 days. Popped in at lunch with Viv to check on her, Jo later said she finished the entire bowl of porridge and avocado.

Her crankiness started the moment we stepped into the house, she was smiling when we picked her up from thre Centre. For unknown reasons, she only wanted Viv to carry her and kept on crying for close to 2 hours! Checking for fever and asking her if she was hurting anywhere yielded nothing. She finally fell asleep after her milk.

Could this crankiness be because she saw Ashlee playing with me this afternoon when we visited her ? Is this a jealous reaction ? She simply refused to come to me nor let me carry her the whole night !!!
Will have to avoid Ashlee the next time.

20 April 2007

Fever....again

Ash was down with a 38.3 degree fever on Friday morning, so took the morning off and brought her to see Vanessa. She was checked and thankfully HFMD or dengue were ruled out...for the time being.
At about 9:30pm, her fever rose quickly to 39.3 degrees even after having taken Brufen. We rushed her down the KKH A&E and spent the next 7 hours there waiting to be attended to by the doctor, for her blood sample to be taken, urine sample (this was the hard part since she was de-hydrated and we had to force feed her water to get a urine sample), wait for the doctor to interpret the blood and urine test results. Urine test results were negative, so her fever wasn't due to UTI. The blood test results did indicate a viral infection....which was expected. Finally got home at 5am.

17 April 2007

The Usual Suspects

Ash had already been "convicted" of the crime of snatch theft : snatching Ashlee's pacifier right out of her mouth and running away with it, later disposing it in some corner of the centre. This "crime " was witnessed by daddy once before. So this morning, when Jo mentioned that "some of the older kids" - older kids here mean Ian, Evan and Ash; have been pulling off baby Ka Lok's booties. By virture of her last "conviction", I was sure Ash was one of the "some of the older kids". Not sure if she's been caught in the act yet or Jo just doesn't want to say it directly.

15 April 2007

At the Pasar Malam & Fun Fair

Today was Ashley's first experience at the Pasar Malam & Fun Fair. Mummy bought her a HELLO KITTY watch and stickers. Daddy got her a TOY CAR ?????? In my defence, she wanted it.

14 April 2007

Temper Temper Temper

Mummy was having a shower and Ash wanted to open the bathroom door, so I carried her away. She wasn't happy with that and put on her pout. As I was walking out of the bedroom, she beat me on the chest and said "Beat daddy", I was a little suprised. I smacked her on her thigh and told her that she could not do that. She beat me again, "beat daddy" and I smacked her again. But she beat me and said "beat daddy" once again and I smacked her again. And before I knew it, with the ferocity of a cornered kitten, she lunged forward and sunk her teeth ala Mike Tyson into my shoulder!

- see the red mark on my shoulder ?

"Aaaaarrrrrrrr................" I shouted. "How can you bite daddy ??????" , I asked her.
I walked out to her playard and I think she knew I was angry with her. The moment I put her down, she immediately put on her sweetest smile and said "Sayang daddy". Sigh !.....I'm a softie....Ash is forgiven.

Milk Shake

Here's how to make milk shake, Ashley style....simply take the bottle, drink a few mouth fulls, remove from mouth, give it a good shake and say " MILK SHAKE" . And there you have it, Ashley's milk shake.
Once done, simply hand the empty bottle to mummy or daddy for washing :p

12 April 2007

Shrimp, Shrimp where you ?

Yesterday evening, Ash walked up to the fish tank, peered into it thru the algae covered glass (yes, daddy's been too lazy to clean the tank) and asked "Shrimp shrimp where you, shrimp shrimp where you ?" It was such a cute sight :)
Mummy had at times sat her in front of the fish tank for her meals and asked her where the shrimps were, cos Ash was only fascinated with the few shrimps in the tank.

Ash can Sing

As we were all lazing around on the bed just before bedtime, Ash crawled up to me and started talking, it took me a moment to realise that she was actually singing (or trying to sing) Wheels on the Bus ! The tune was vaguely there and so were the words like "up and down, swish, swish, swish and beep beep beep" ! So I joined her in singing the song. The part she enjoys most is where it goes "the people on the bus bounce up and down" where she'll be bouncing up and down and laughing away.

10 April 2007

Fever - Day 2

Ash was running a fever thru the night. Highest temperature was 38.2 C at 1.20am. Viv and I kept watch over her till about 4am when her temperature was down to 36.9 C.
Fever was back up to 37.8 C by 8am and it maintained around this temperature till noon when it got into the 38 C range and looked to be on a upward trend. Administered Brufen. In between, we brought her to see Dr. Vanessa and was told since there were no obvious symptoms, her fever was quite likely to be viral and would burn itself out in 2-3 days, but we were adviced to keep a look out for rashes, signs of dengue.
Despite all these, Ash was fairly cheerful and managed to have some cereal for breakfast, several slices of water-melon, 3/4 bowl of porridge for lunch and even some Ben & Jerry's ice-cream !

9 April 2007

FEVER !!

We were slightly late picking Ash up from IFC this evening. Viv noticed she felt a little warm and looked a little lethargic. She fell asleep during the journey back, which was unsual. Even the walk up to the flat, all she did was to lay her head on my shoulder.
The moment we got home, took her temperature and to our dismay, she was indeed running a 38.9 degree temperature ! Gave her 2ml of Brufen straight away.
30 mins later, her temperature had fallen to 37.7 degrees and she started to be the Ash we normally see.....cheerful and playful.
Last check while she was sleeping - 36.7.....hopefully it remains like this tonight.

8 April 2007

Easter Sunday

Brought Ash to church today and it was my turn to accompany her to Sunday School. Suprisingly, Ash was the 2nd kid in class, most people I guess were making use of the long weekend to go on a short trip.

Project today was to make an Easter Basket.



Ash recently discovered stickers. It's amazing how these things can keep her attention for ages, peeling them off, sticking them on, peeling them off, sticking them on.........That evening, Viv bought a couple more sticker books from the JL Expo Sale.

13 March 2007

Last Friday (9 March), 10am was the scariest day of my life. Ash was still running a low grade fever, but still cheerful. I did notice that she was lethargic when she woke though.
Gave her a bath and all of a sudden, her legs just gave way. I thought she was playing with me, but when I saw her eyes roll and her limbs stiffen, I knew that she gone into a seizure. The moments after that were a blur. The first thought was did she swallow her tongue ? Quickly I forced her mouth open and stuck my finger in to pull her tongue out and held it down. Later was told by doctors that was the wrong thing to do. I guess the IPPT training finally came in useful, carried Ash from our flat and ran all the way to the nearest GP clinic (not the previous quack's clinic, of course). But this one was no better, barely touched her and told us to bring her to KKH instead.
Viv decided that we should bring her to Vanessa's clinic, so I ran all the way back to the car-park to get my car, met Viv at Quack2's clinic and rushed off to Vanessa's. When Vanessa was sure that Ash was alright, she suggested that Ash be brought to KKH for further observation and arranged for an ambulance.
A&E at KKH, what can I say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Next 2 days were spent trying to get Ash to eat and drink, watching a team of doctors examine Ash and finding out that KKH doesn't have spoons for children even though it's called a Children's Hospital !









Left : Watching TV; Right : zzzzzzzz.......
One thing learnt : 90% of GP's are reluctant to treat infants.

8 March 2007

I, of the Catina Cat clan..........

Ash's fever has been on and off. She's not been eating or drinking much, barely had 4 spoonfuls or plain porridge. Hope she'll be better tomorrow.

17th month - 7 March 2007

Ash had not pooed for 2 days, and this morning she woke up crying trying very hard to poo. She was also running a fever. No matter how hard she strained, she still couldn't do it. She had been at it for almost 1.5hrs.
At 8.30am, we decided to bring to the nearby GP's clinic instead of Dr. Vanessa's which only opened at 9.00am. We only got to to see him at 9.00am. In between, Ash had vomitted twice outside the clinic...BIG mistake on my part for not waiting for Vanessa. Why ? This was the quackest of quack doctors that I've ever had to see !!!!!!! All thru the consultation, he was treating us as though we were imbeciles and mocking us. I'll say no more.
Ash was precribed a Microlax, which we had to administer ourselves. The administering of the Microlax was a failure. I didn't insert it quite far enough for it to work.
We brought her to Kidslink to see Vanessa and within 10 mins of the Mircolax, and lots of crying, we smelt the sweet smell of Ash's poo. Believe me, after seeing her strain thru the morning, poo never smelt sweeter....ha ha ha.