What a difference

After last night of William crying to sleep, tonight was so a total difference. An experience I'd want to have every night.

After nursing him for around 5 minutes, he pulled himself away, and I placed him on my bed. His eyes closed, and I just "pat pat" him a bit, then realised that I could actually leave him there, while I finish off some packing in the room. He continued to turn left and right a bit, and occassionally I can hear short shierks of laughter from him as if he's playing, but yet, his eyes were closed and I know very soon, this happy baby will fall asleep without much fuss.

Victoria came into the room just as I thought I had successfully put him to sleep, and William woke up. After Victoria left, I lie down beside him and watch him... fall happily asleep.

Aaahh... I wonder if it was because he has learnt from last night, or it's just an one off situation. But whatever it is, I sure appreciate nights like these and pray there will be more.

All hope is not lost. ; )

Dreams

When Victoria woke up from her afternoon nap yesterday, she was grouchy. She said she don't want Teacher. I asked why. Then she said Teacher asked her to sit outside the classroom. When I probed, she didn't answer. Then I asked her if she was dreaming, she said ya. Phew.

Then this morning after waking up, she told me, "I don't want cows in my garden."

I said, "Huh?" Since when we got cows in our garden?

She was dreaming lar. How she can dream about cows? My only hunch is because I recently bought her a set of new panties, with attractive pictures of cows on it. (CNY mood mah)

I cry, you cry

Last night, I tried to put William to sleep. For whatever reasons, I don't have the magic touch where he will just doze off on my shoulders or in my arms when I carry, unlike the maid or even my hubby (who spends less time with him). Everytime I attempt to do that, he'd be playful, shifting his head to my left shoulder, then right shoulder, then left, or he'd want to get down to play. Sigh. So I end up nursing him to sleep which works some of the time.

These nights when he wakes up middle of the night, he wants to nurse and refuses the bottle. So after much frustration, fatigue and toying with the idea of training him to sleep without being nursed to, I decided to put him down on the bed to let him sleep by himself (like what he used to do when he was a few months old). Victoria was with me and it was three of us in the room.

Naturally the boy cried. He wasn't happy that he's not getting what he wants, yet when I carry him he pushes me away. So how? Put him on the bed la, and just "pat pat" him to sleep. After a few minutes which seemed like eons to Victoria, Victoria told me in an almost-crying-half-scolding tone, "Mummy, carry him. Please. Carry him."

I was touched, because here is the sister, who sometimes gets jealous of the brother and bosses him around, and takes his toys just when he wants to play, and says he's "so bad, so naughty"... and yet...

She could not stand to see her brother cry. She "pat pat" him to sleep and sang nursery rhymes. A short while later, William stopped crying and just slept.

All in all, the whole episode took less than 10 minutes. Not too bad, considering hubby and I had experienced worse during Victoria's time.

In her own words

When Victoria was younger, say around 2 yo, she used to invent words herself to describe persons or things. Once in a while now, she still impress us with her word inventions.

Those days, she'd call...

The grass cutter or any man - Uncleman

These days, she'd sometimes call...

The grass cutter - Cutterman
Chef / Cook - Cookerman
Computer Keyboard - Typer

I can't remember what other "new" words she invented, but they sure surprise me and put a smile on my face.

Lunch

Victoria loves to feed William. Whether it's water, or milk or just porridge. She waits and initiates and asks... sometimes she negotiates with me on the number of times she can spoonfeed William. I limit her now after the initial times where she accidentally put the spoon too deep into William's mouth, and then the subsequent times the feeding become too messy. It gets quite frustrating when William is hungry or sleepy and we just want to quickly let him finish his meals.

So, these days I let her feed only one or two spoons and she's happy with that, sometimes more, depending on whether it's "messy or not"... which gives her incentive to keep it clean.

I think she just loves being "us" and also this is one of her ways of showing her love for her baby brother.

Aaahhhh




Yummyyyyy

4th Tooth

William's 4th tooth is out! Yippeeee!!

2nd visit to Tangkak

Last Friday we brought Victoria down to see her allergy doctor in Tangkak for her follow up checkup. As Daddy had a last minute business trip, Yeh Yeh drove Victoria and I down, and we even had the privilege to have Pastor Ben to join us. We left at 915am, targeting to arrive by 11am as suggested by the Doctor.

I was silently excited to know how Victoria progressed over the past 2 months, having diligently taking her drops twice a day and her probiotics as prescribed.

The Doctor did a few tests using test tubes, not as comprehensive as the previous times, but we did retest to reconfirm that she has NO ALLERGY to wheat flour, cow's milk and chicken.

The level of her allergy to mint has zerorized (ie no more allergy), eggs down from 12 to 10 points, and yeast and candida (bad bacteria) dropped to 2. In general, she is improving, but we were also told that she must have subconsciously taken some food with traces of egg which caused her to itch on her fingers and therefore, her allergy level to egg have not dropped as much as expected to.

The "bad" news is, once Victoria has fully healed where all her allergies are down to ZERO, she has to continue to abstain from food with the allergens ie eggs and yeast for another 1 year, to allow her body to build its immune system. That means, easily after she turns 5 yo.

My challenge this year then is to look for an eggless, preferably wheat free and diary free cake for her birthday. Sounds like a big feat to accomplish, but I'll try my best. It'll be very sad and quite meaningless to order a cake for her and not allow the birthday girl to enjoy even a bite.

God continue to bless Victoria with quick and complete healing, and William too.

Btw, the good news is ... she's NOT allergic to durian (but she's not keen on this food anyway) and that once her skin has completely healed, we can slowly test her with wheat, cow's milk and chicken, which will then conclude if her initial blood test was accurate or not.

In the meantime, Victoria is hanging on. There are days when she misses foods which she can't eat. I have on numerous occassions answered the same question over and over from her, on why and when she can eat her favourite foods again.

Some nights back, we happily listed down some of the foods which she misses...

pancake (from paddington house of pancakes), sausages, pau, bread with butter (her favourite supper), chocolates, roti canai, grapes, buns...