Literacy

Today at the school's Parent-Teacher meeting, the Director talked about literacy.ONe point she stressed was that most parents start introducing literacy by reading to their children. It is a great bonding time and therefore a great motivator for the kids to read more (and enjoy time with mom or dad). 

I can't agree more. Almost every night, Little Guy would grab a book, climb onto the love seat with me, stuff himself in the little crack between Twilight (our dog) and I, and say, "Mommy read!! SNUGGLE!" It always makes me feel quite good. 

Incidentally, I am reading a lot lately and my work-in-progress is a book called "The Perks of Being a Wallflower". Only started so I have no verdict just yet, but it is written in the form of collection of letters written from a teenage boy to his "Dear Friend" (someone I have not yet know who it is.) In the story, it mentioned his mother gave him some books she used to like when she was her age. Perhaps I should do it like Harper Reed (https://harperreed.org/books) and keeps a tally of the books that I liked and Coltrane can later share. 

Just a thought. 

Anything that makes my little boy learn to enjoy and love books would be a delight to me. 

Copy Cat - 2Y2M

Parents of any two year-old will tell you that they have a loud-mouth copy cat at home.

Little Guy's physical ability isn't the most fantastic, but his verbal skill is quite advanced...enough to get us in trouble.

Incident 1
School teachers wrote all parents weekly report, which is broadcast emailed to all parents. One of the reports said, "CC did role play as restaurant owner today. He served eggs, oatmeal, and pizza, and insisted that we call in to order in advance. He said they do that at home."

Great! Now everyone knows we call-in to order for pizza...


Incident 2
Mommy and Daddy are conservative drivers, but we have no patience for bad drivers or aggressive drivers. At the red light, we saw someone does illegal maneuver and said, "Come on!"

Couple days later, waiting at the red light, we heard Little Guy from the back seat, "Come on!"


Incident 3
We tell Little Guy always to "watch out" when he crosses the road because some drivers cannot see him; actually we tell him to never cross the street without us.

Daddy was backing out of the drive way, when Little Guy said, "People, WATCH OUT! My Daddy driving!"

HFMD, Croup, and Pneumonia

HFMD, Croup, and Pneumonia...

What do they have in common? They are the illnesses that Little Guy contracted in the month of September. That made September one of the toughest month for me, working mom, especially when it is end-of-quarter and I was out of office for customer visits and training for almost 1.5 week!

The main cause of such frequent illness really was the change in environment. Due to age cut-off, Little Guy was left behind for one more month so his age requirement meets regulation. A new group of children brought in a new group of illnesses and he got them all!

They all started out with slight sniffle and a fever. Actually, for Little Guy, it often comes with some form of cough and almost daily puke, due to his sensitive gag reflex. Because his history of ear infections, all three episodes also are always followed by me insist on taking him to see Urgent Care doctor, while feeling guilty for wasting medical resources for a common cold. And then we found out at the doctor's that something slightly more serious than a common cold has happened.

Here are my thoughts and summary on these three:

HFMD
Supposedly everyone gets it a little differently, but it often starts with a fever, which is what Little Guy got. For children, it often followed by mouth sores, little blisters on palm or bottom of their feet, but sometimes on arms and legs. The tricky part is, because toddlers cannot describe how they feel yet, it is often hard to know they have mouth sores until way later! However, one very telling sign for Little Guy was when he refused his favorite home-made cookies! Since his mouth sores are all at the back of his throat, we didn't even know it was HFMD until the doctor looked into his mouth!

There isn't a remedy for HFMD, but several key things to remember:

1. Keep them hydrated! The biggest immediate danger for HFMD for toddlers and babies is that they refuse to eat and drink, and therefore gets dehydrated. Monitor their wet diapers closely. They should have at least one wet diaper per 8 hours. 
2. Around the clock pain meds. If you ever had canker sore, you'll know when it hurts, it really hurts! So mange the pain well is one key to recovery quickly. 
3. If the mouth sores are bad, give them some liquid ant-acid. The way liquid ant-acid coats stomach ulcers works for mouth sores too. After 2 days of forcing liquid in any form (water, milk, juice, ice cream...) down his throat, we learned from an advice nurse about the ant-acid. We tried and it worked wonders! They said to give it after he eats, but I often do it before so he won't feel the pain caused by the food as much. 

Other than these, there isn't much you can do but ride it out!

Croup

Bad cough, really bad cough. They'll sound like seal barking. So when you hear it, you know it! Never hurt to double-check with doctors though. Croup is basically a cold virus that affects the throat area instead of sinus area. So Little Guy didn't have much nasal discharge, but the cough was horrific! And because he pukes at the slightest of coughs, it was around the clock laudr-o-mat at our house. Other than that, it's the same wait-it-out story.

Pneumonia

By-product of some other respiratory disease, but we couldn't really self-identify until the doctor ordered a chest x-ray. The reason doctor suspected it was that he was coughing, had a fever of 101.5, breathing hard, low blood oxygen (lower than 93%), but no wheezing (which would have been asthma). X-ray confirmed 100%. So now he's on Motrine for fever control and antibiotics for eradicating the bacteria. 

On the flip side of things, while Little Guy's weight went down to 20th percentile, his height shot up to 71st percentile, which means despite the illnesses, he is still growing like a weed! 

Happy 2nd Birthday!

Two years ago this time, we were still a family of three, getting ready to go to bed while watching season premier of Hawaii 5-0, in our San Francisco loft. Two hours later, Little Guy will set a stage for his entrance to this world by creating his own wave of tsunami all over our $4,000 bed. 

Happy Birthday, my baby, my Little Guy, my love. 

It has been an eventful year. You went from bar

ely crawling to dashing around the house; from babbling to negotiating with complete sentences; from eating your books to reading them by yourself; from drinking mainly milk to eating Singaporean curry with corn on the side. The only thing constant was that the t-shirt you wore one year ago still fits.

Lots has happened. We went through countless bouts of illness; we experienced a huge scare of false suspicion of DS; we passed the crazy stomach virus to each other; we survived HFMD and croup within 10 days...Those days were tough. But we also had many many laughters and delights watching buses on street of Taipei with Ah-Gong and Ah-Mah. Or snuggle with George and watch Olivia. Or simply sitting outside of CPSC doing our daily after-school picnic.

No other joy is greater than that from being with you.

In this coming year, I wish you the safest, healthiest, happiest times to come. And in life, I wish that just like your (Chinese) name implies, a very peaceful and humble life.

Mommy, Daddy, and Twilight love you very very much.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Little Guy.

The Weakest Link?

The other day, my nanny said to me that Baby R is already treating/reacting to us all slightly differently. For example, she said, Baby R knows she can get away with more with me as compared to Mr. R!  me!!!! The weakest link? How did that happen? I thought you cannot spoil a baby!  It's true, I have become a big softie and push-over. But does my baby know that already? All kidding aside, this innocuous remark had me thinking more and more recently about what kind of parent I want to be.  I want her to grow up independent. That's going to be hard when all I want to do is be by her side.  Sigh, see, push-over.

Bullies and a Mother's Wish

School teacher told me today, that Little Guy can knock his opponents out now during a "fight".

I do not tolerate violence. But I also believe standing up for oneself and defending oneself against violence, especially being smallest in age/size in this world of bullies.

Our parents and teacher used to just tell us, the act of violence is just wrong, period. But what about the cause for such violence? What about self-defense? I feel that the key is to teach Little Guy that it is okay to protect himself, but he should NEVER become a bully.

His parents are both sensible and pragmatic people who can hold opinions of their own and not care much about what others think of ourselves. At the same time, we are also sensitive towards other people's needs and know right from wrong.

I don't wish for Ivy League or fancy title in Little Guy's future, but I do hope he grows to be a man with right set of values.

And of course, eats well, sleeps well, healthy, and happy. (Very tall order!)

About Yummies

In the first 4 months of Little Guy's life, he practically was exclusively breast fed. We started trying the bottles at 3 weeks and it was too late. Not only was he immuned to nipple confusion, but he was also way too crystal clear about what his preference was. So when I had to go back to work at 4 months post-partum, we've tried practically every thing there is to try with the bottles. Often times I ended up singing this endless song that goes something like, "Incoming yummies, incoming yummies, incoming yummies, incoming yummies..." Trust me, the tune is way more interesting than the lyrics. 

So till this day, he still calls his milk bottle "yummies". Or more accurately, "mummus." 

So when it comes to food, we often use words other than "yummies". But they are all yummy! Since he was old enough to try solids, we didn't use rice cereal for long at all. For a foodie like myself, I even went as far as making my own baby food. I can count the jars/packs of pre-packed baby food he's ever consumed in two hands. And most of them are during this one road trip up to Canada. 

And when I make our own baby food, I never added much salt or sugar. But I've always been adventurous when it comes to spices. Spinach oatmeal puree with a hint of cilatnro, basil, and garlic; sweet potato and carrots puree with a sprinkle of cinnamon; chicken soup mush cooked with bay leaves, rubbed sage, and dash of black pepper. Seeing how liberal we used our spices, our nanny started to make him grilled cheese sandwich with dijon mustard! 

However, when he turned one, we've gone through this puzzling change and now back to the original Little Guy. Soon after he turned one, we started to give him soy milk which really went well with his digestive system. Unfortunately with the uncertainty about soy estrogen, we quickly had to switch over to cow's milk. And nothing against cow's milk, but it seems to give him way more constipation than ever! He is also doing quite a lot of vomiting whenever something gags him slightly. More troubling, when he does vomit, food he ate 12 hours ago come back up! How is that possible? Does he have delayed digestion? At the same time, my Little Guy who used to eat anything is refusing practically any solid food and would only drink milk! That worried us and therefore we sought professional help. Upon talking to us for 10 minutes and looked through his chart, the doctor immediately told us his slowed digestion is probably due to his constipation; when the pipe is not clear, nothing goes through! First thing to do is to cut his milk down by at least half. Second thing is to start offering him the food he seemed to resist. 

The result is a little guy who loves marsala tiki chicken over chicken nuggets and turkey chili with a hint of dark chocolate over mac-n-cheese! We got our lovely little eater back! He loves food! Real life adult food too! 

In this world where everyone gives you different ways to raise a child, (where one theory said don't give fish and some hyper-allergenic food until after 1 yo, the other theory said the earlier you give those food, the less he'll have allergies to them when he grows up), I am definitely glad I listened to the latter and stayed adventurous with food. 

After all, what's better than the world of yummies!