Happy Birthday Xue Han!

This little boy turns two today.


He is Micah, Max and Myron's cousin brother who lives in Lion City (Singapore).


We love you, cutie.
We will be seeing you soon to celebrate your birthday with you.
Micah and Max can't wait to give you your presents and have you open them.
Myron will be making his first journey out of Malaysia. Oh, so exciting for the boys!!
So exciting for all of us.

Xue Han,
May you continue to grow in wellness and excellence.
May there be many milestone markers.
May you continue to bring joy to the people around you.
May there be many more to come.

God bless you and keep you.

I Can Only Imagine

My dear friend,

I bumped into you the other day and we talked as we walked to your car.

I can only imagine your pain.
I cannot say I know because that would be untrue.
I am not going through the grief you have to wrestle with every day, every night.
The pain that comes like spasms sporadically throughout the day.
Spasms that paralyzes you.

I can only imagine your pain.
I can only imagine how hard it is to sit in front of the computer wanting to blog, to keep a record so you will not forget.
You sit staring blankly at the screen, your fingers occasionally touching the keys at the key board, but most of the time your hands fell heavy and limp.

I can only imagine...
You sitting like a block of wood, unmoving.
But your brain is in a frenzy,
Like a whirlwind, spinning around in a kind of madness.
Time is being rewound and fast-forwarded.
Flashes of places and events.
Voices requesting, squealing, crying, protesting, repeating new words;
Conversations recalled,
How favourite songs were sung each time.
But everything is held by the one same golden strand -
Your beautiful boy.
Your beautiful beautiful boy.

I can only imagine...
You sitting quiet and still,
but your eyes occasionally lights up,
then dims,
then the tears begin to fall.

I can only imagine...
The emotions come like a tidal wave that breaks the dam.
The happy and joyous mixed with the pain of grief and loss.
Regrets. Gladness. The unbearable emptiness.
The tears can't seems to stop.
The pain has no end.

I can only imagine...
You crying as silently as you can, but as much as you can.
Then you crawl into bed to try to rest... or
Then you wash your face and put on a brave front to face the world.

But I can somewhat understand.
Though I cannot grasp the greatness of your pain, I have a hint,
For I, too, have lost a love one before,
But it cannot be compared.
Each heart knows only its own joy and pain.
The rest of us,
We can only imagine.


Here's remembering you and your family:
(Photo extracted from your blog)

The Lariche family at home on Christmas morning last year (2007),
Jien's second and last Christmas with us

Everyone's So Jealous

This is really a post of appreciation, though it'll make many eyes green with envy.

My sister has been declared the wonderful sister and the wonderful aunt by the many moms in the playgroup.

She helps bake cakes and cookies and make pasta for me and my boys.
She did this for the playgroup too when it was actually my turn to bring the snack - made my boys' favourite pasta so that they would eat well.
At one point when the boys were into soups, she would make all kinds of yummy soup for them, especially the butternut pumpkin soup.
She generously buys gifts for the boys, especially books on cars and trains and trucks.
She thinks of them constantly, and there are just all kinds of goodies that she will get for them, if she thinks it'll not indulge them too much, but she does indulge them - just not too much (by her standard).

Because she works near the boys' school, she accompanies me send and pick the boys up :
4 hands are better than 2 when you have to take 2 boys - make sure they have their shoes on - and their bags out of the car, occasionally to have to cross the street, and up the stairs.
On mornings we do not detour to pick her up on the way to school, either on of the boys will ask, "Mum, aren't we picking up Ee-ee*?"

Once, while I was having my confinement, Gadget-daddy was tied up in a meeting, so Ee-ee was called to help out at the emergency: She had to pick the boys up after school and keep them safe and entertained for about 30 minutes before their father could get to them. She took them to a classy cafe for pasta and cake! Our protest is that we could not keep up with her treats should the boys ask for it and think it's a regular affair. *gasp*

Then last night, Gadget-daddy and I went for a friend's engagement party. To find some relief for mil, who would have to handle the baby, we got Ee-ee to come in to play with the boys. She took them to the park, got them showered after that, made sure they took their dinner, gave them a treat and got them to sleep by the time we got back about 10.30pm.

The boys love to sit with Ee-ee during meal times.
You get fed and entertained with a story too.

More recent:
Before Myron was born, she had already bought him 4 sets of clothes.
She also bought me 2 preggy blouses then.
A few days ago she bought me another 2. She knows it's hard to go shopping with my tag-a-long's.

Thank you, Ee-ee for loving us so much and making the world a better place.
You are indeed wonderful to us.
Everyone's so jealous. *wink*

P.S -Thanks too for the conversations we have every morning while the boys are at school: The gossips, the news, the "intellectual discourse" and psychoanalysis of the people around us. It's so good to talk to another adult. Keeps me sane. ;)



* In the Chinese language, in all the different dialects spoken, very specific titles are given to relatives, which will indicate if you are a male/female, from mum's /dad's side, and if you are older/ younger to the parent, sometimes indicating your position in the number of siblings. It also indicates which generation you belong to.
Ee-ee is your aunt on your mother's side, and usually is younger to your mum. If there are a few aunts, they will be indicated by number. Cousins to your parents are address by their name tied to their title.

Bottles' A-Busted

Myron is putting up a battle.
A battle with his grandma.
Actually, a battle with the bottles.



I take the 2 older ones to school every morning, Tuesday to Friday, and leave Myron with my mil. I leave him at home to give him a bit more time from exposure to the pollution in a bustling part of our city. I also leave him at home because I want to train him to drink from the bottle (I express) but it is slowly showing to be a plan heading towards failure.

The baby is complaining more and more each time he is given the bottle. Today, after two weeks of fighting with the bottle, mil was desperate. Myron was actually fed with a syringe.

The reason for this practise is because Max was fully breastfed at the breast for 3 years. He now refuses any kind of milk other than a u.h.t. chocolate milk. Of course we are concern for his lack of intake of calcium and other nutrients in milk, although he is eating well. Anyway, my intent was to have Myron continue drinking milk after I wean him.

We shall see how this all turns out eventually.

Micah and Max
with some of their classmates.

Some Excuses and Some Updates

Hey, Judy.
Your SMS made me realise how long I have not posted.
Thanks.

It's a tough time getting on with blogging these days because:
1. the connection is so slow it's exasperating;

2. I am tired by the end of the day and usually fall asleep while getting the two older boys into bed and have to snuggle in bed with them, resulting in Mommy falling asleep with them, if not before them;

3. Nursing Myron in a lying position induces slumber;

4. Breastfeeding is so draining I feel tired and in need of protein in-take almost all the time - I even think of having a rack of ribs in the middle of the night;

5. Gadget-daddy is doing some podcast and is hogging the room, and we are all too tired to do anything else after that but climb into bed.


Anyway..

Myron's been growing well.
In fact, to a certain point I feel he is growing too fast.
Thank you all for your prayers, thoughts and well-wishes.

We have not gone back to the doctors for further check-up, but he is now pink and no more yellow. The last we check, Myron is 5kg and about 57cm.

He has outgrown this pajamas.

He now engages you with his coos and gurgles and makes all kinds of facial expressions. Maybe it's just gas (so some scientists say), but he sure warms our hearts as he smiles a lot.



And he is constantly cuddled and kissed by his brothers, especially Micah.


This baby is just so lovely to cuddle.

Diarrhoea and Child Growth

Thanks Judy for this in your e-mail.

My friend sent this link about treating diarrhoea in her e-mail and I thought this is really useful for us who have young kids and are constantly caring and worrying about them.

Just to "cut and paste" parts of the story to summerise :


When someone gets diarrhoea, sometimes the solution is so easy, we wonder why anyone has to suffer.

The secret is in rice water.

My mother knew about it. When Dr Albert Winsemius came to Singapore many years ago for a farewell and thank you dinner in his honour, he brought along his wife Aly and his granddaughter, Jolijn. Both women came down with very bad gastroenteritis.. They saw the doctor who gave them medication. It was slow to work.

Mother boiled some rice in lots of water and went to their hotel with two 1.5L bottles of rice water.

Never heard of this cure before. To my surprise, it worked, and they were even able to go out for dinner the next day. Both were exclaiming how the rice water did the trick of making them well again.

It is rice water and not rice, that does the trick. I have found it effective again and again. You take a handful of rice and boil it in a large saucepan with lots of water. Like three or four large glasses. Then you cool that and drink the water.
If you are in a hurry to relieve the ailing person, take the saucepan off the fire and dunk it in a frying pan or basin of cool water with ice cubes if necessary.

This gives the patient a chance to drink the rice water sooner and cure himself or herself sooner.

When drinking the rice water, make sure there is lots of it. You have to tell the patient that enough water must go in to line your guts from throat to other end, all 10 to 12 metres of it. If you take rice, it stays in the stomach. If you take broth, some of it may go into the small intestine.

But if you take rice water, it will carry rice grains to every inch of your small and large intestine to the end where the problem is.

We always say "Eat rice".
Now we can also tell others, "Drink rice."
:)
Have a good week.

Myron Adored

The brothers just simply love their 6-week old baby.

We managed to catch a few shots of them together.

Micah and Myron.

Max holding Myron on his lap.

Myron had his first shower last weekend.
It was because hr pooped while he was being sunned.
That ended his sunbathing and was headed to the bathroom.

Myron's first thrilling shower.

I am Grateful

Thank you.

Thank you for all your thoughts, your well wishes and your prayers.

Myron went in for the blood test yesterday for the bilirubin and it had actually went down quite a bit. It was at 267.5 when we tested on Monday and yesterday it was down to 191.

It's still above the safe level of 180, but the doctor was impressed with the progress and said we just keep doing what we are doing and go back in next week for one more blood test to check the bilirubin level.

Sorry for delaying the good news, but we are juggling going to school, nursing a baby fully, still trying to give attention to the two older ones and ...

...Aarg! Either the internet or Blogger is just so slow that I keep getting interrupted before anything can load fully, and somewhere in between either the computer has gone to "sleep" or I would have.
That's the reason for the delay.

Anyway, Thanks for sticking by us at this time.

Micah finally got to carry Myron...

while sitting on the sofa.