29 Apr 2008

Annie Apple

28 Apr 2008

Painting

To keep Ash occupied, decided to let her do some painting this morning. And then I realised she had sort of achieved a new milestone; she is now able to paint within the lines (sort of).

Activity Pack

It was a nice gesture. Pat's had prepared and sent to all parents an activity pack to keep the kids occupied during the closure and also to keep up with the syllabus. In the pack, there were worksheets, 2 story books, simple art activities, a card game and a CD of songs played in class.

23 Apr 2008


Art n Craft - Teddy Bear Picnic


Couple of weeks back, Ash's class had a teddy bear picnic. A week later, this was what they did for art and craft.


And here is Ash posing with her work.

22 Apr 2008

School Closure - HFMD

"TWO preschools and five childcare centres have been be ordered by the Health Ministry (MOH) to close for 10 days due to the extent of hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) outbreak there." - extract from Asiaone.com

We were informed this evening by the teachers that Pat's Schoolhouse has been ordered to close for 10 days starting this Thursday, 24 Apr, to help break the transmission. They had actually wanted to close voluntarily for 3 days prior to MOH's order. Pat's has been averaging 2 cases daily for the past week, so I guess it was a matter of time.
It's just that Viv had just taken a whole week's leave last week to care for Ash and now this.
Will have to try to speak to my HR to work from home.

21 Apr 2008

All Clear

Ash was given the all clear by Dr. Zainal this morning. So tomorrow she'll be back at Pat's. And then just as we were leaving the clinic, another girl came in with HFMD.
Viv called Pat's and was told that including Ash, there were three cases (including Ash) in her playgroup class, 1 had recovered and another resting at home. The toddler and infant classes had 1 new case each.

16 Apr 2008

Waiting for por-por

Por-Por had come down to help take care of Ash and when Ash woke this morning, first thing she did was to sit herself outside por-por's room, waiting for por-por to wake up.

14 Apr 2008

Ash will now be part of MOH's weekly infectious disease statistic for the week ending 18 Apr.
She is now 99% confirmed down with HFMD. Although Dr. Zainal couldn't find any spots on her hands and feet, the blisters in her mouth were pretty obvious.
We sort of suspected that she had caught it because of the cyclic spiking fever over the weekend and this morning, she complained of pain when she drank her milk, which she did not finish. When we checked her mouth, we saw what we thought were several tiny blisters, and Dr. Zainal confirmed it for us. So she'll be out of school for the next 7 days.
This evening's dinner was tough, Viv made very diluted porridge and fed it to Ash, alternating with ice-cream. And all the while, Ash was crying and whining because of the pain.
On the brighter side, her fever seems to be gone, and other than the pain when she eats or drinks, she appears to be her normal cheerful self.
Hopefully the blisters doesn't get worse tomorrow.

13 Apr 2008

7.25am

It's been quite a while that I've had to blog of Ash having fever. Well, she's down with again. It started yesterday afternoon after we got home from GUG. It was a low grade fever of 37.5-38.1 throughout the afteroon and then all of a sudden at 6.30pm, it rose rapidly from 37.9 to 39.1 in a span of 45 mins. So much so that she threw up her partially digested lunch. Despite this, she managed to say she felt better after throwing up. With a dose of Brufen, her fever gradually came back down to a low grade range again. She was also able to play as though nothing happened. She fell asleep at around 9.30pm in the hall, and so that's where we all spent the night.
This morning, it started rising again from the 36.7 to 38.2 by 6.15am. It took an hour before the effect of paracetamol set in. Last check, her temperature was down to 37.6.

Our worry now is HFMD. The last time she was down with HFMD, it started the same way, low grade fever and then a sudden spiking fever. I hope it's not HFMD and it is just some viral fever or food poisoning considering that her vomitted lunch was only half digested after 7 hours. But as at 10 April, there have been 4 cases reported at Pat's, 3 from infant care and 1 from the toddler class. Although Ash is in playgroup, when it comes to playtime, both the toddler and playgroup classes play in same area. According to the MOH website, HFMD peaked at 892 cases as at 5 Apr.

4.25pm

Fever has been rollercoastering. Everything was fine when she woke at around 9.30am. Then all of a suddden, slightly after 10am, her temperature hit 38.2. It continued to rise by another degree and by around 11am, it has hit 39.2 despite having administered paracetamol an hour ago. So we had to resort to Brufen, her temperature rose to 39.6 before it started coming down. By noon, she was back to her cheerful self and even agreed to go downstairs for a walk and eat her lunch of plain porridge and fish. She sweated quite bit, which we thought was good....to sweat the heat out. Back upstairs, she finished off a bowl of papaya and spent the early afternoon reading and chatting with Viv.
At around 3pm, she fell asleep but then her temperature started to rise again to 37.7, hitting 38.0. It is now back to 37.5...1/2 hour after paracetamol. Hopefully, this is a sign that her fever is starting to break.

11 Apr 2008

Look ! Princess !

Yesterday evening, as we stopped at the traffic light opposite Tekka Mall, Ash suddenly exclaimed "Look ! Princess ! And fish !"

What she saw was the Songs of the Sea advertisement at Tekka Mall. She then started relating all she the things she did at Sentosa.

9 Apr 2008

While you were sleeping this morning.....

Daddy was jumping up and down celebrating Liverpool's Quarter-final victory over Arsenal in the UEFA Champions' League.

3 Apr 2008

Mummy's Home !

Mummy finally came back this morning from a 2-week long business trip to Annapolis and London. She also managed to squeeze in a weekend in Edinburgh to visit Aunty Michelle, Uncle Donald and baby Timothy. Despite her tight schedule, mummy still managed shopping sprees in Baltimore and Edinburgh, which resulted in 2 pairs of Stride Rite shoes, a whole lot of Gap, Early Days, Next and Cherokee clothes for Ash.

And Aunty Michelle also bought 2 pop-up books for Ash.

Even at T3, mummy still managed to shop for a set of Aquadoodle Magic Mat - the no mess drawing mat.