The Suspected Itch Culprit

As RE's skin condition has flared up so much, last night Hcp and I tried to think of all the possibilities that could have caused the itch. So you can guess that his skin condition must be quite bad to really make us sit down and start scrutinizing what we may have done wrong or overlooked.

First Hcp thinks that maybe the milk powder with honey. The other day, I was in a rush and I accidentally bought the milk with honey flavour. We usually buy the original flavour. I don't understand why there is honey flavour. Have you tried their milk? It is so sweet and I cannot imagine how sweet the milk would be with honey flavour. RE does not really take honey as I have this slight suspicion that he may be allergic to honey. So Hcp asked me to open a new box of milk - the one with original flavour.

I made the milk and somehow don't know wat caused me to look at the box again and when I read the ingredients...lo behold!.... I was shocked to see that the company has changed their source of DHA ingredients from plant cells to marine fish oil. Ahhh.... the reason why we have been using this company's milk was that it was practically the only formula company that uses plant cell for DHA. The other companies use fish oil. Now...they have changed it. The question is when did they change it?

RE's skin condition changed sometime towards the last quarter of last year...so if the change of ingredients took place around the same time, then we can be pretty sure that the milk powder is the culprit. This morning, Hcp called their customer care line and they acknowledged that they have changed the source of DHA. They were not very sure when but Hcp asked them to find out.

On the other hand, this morning, I went to Tesco to survey milk powder. Since RE is already coming to 6, I think DHA or not, it is not going to matter much. Anyway, we have always been suspicious with all those added DHA, ARA and etc. So, I found the normal milk powder for him, those plain ones without any of those added "super" ingredients. RE may not like the taste of the new milk as I believe it is not going to be as sweet as his previous milk.

Also last night, I called the paed to ask which anti histamines work better to reduce itch? We have piriton, zyrtec and aerius. We were told piriton while I have been giving RE zyrtec. Zyrtec works very well for RE when he takes something that he is allergic to e.g when there is a break out of rash after he unknowingly consumed fish products or something he is allergic to. I suspect that besides fish and egg, he is allergic to either baking soda or some form of preservatives. Whenever he has McDonald, slight rash will break out on his lips area and his eyes will have some rash too. When that happens, I will give him Zyrtec and it will help. So whenever we go out on holidays, I will carry Zyrtec with me. Last year, when we were in Singapore, RE had a plate of chicken rice and soon after that,, his face and eyes were all red and rash broke out in his lips area. That really baffles me...what could be in the chicken rice that cause that reaction? The soya sauce used and perhaps oyster sauce??

Last night, RE went to bed with MILO instead of his usual milk. Not sure if it is the piriton that is working or the MILO instead of his usual milk, RE did not scratch at all last night. This morning when he woke up, his face was also very nice, not red and no rash patches too.

So let's see and I hope we have zeroed in on the right culprit.

** Update: The company just called Hcp and told them they changed it June last year. So looks like this is the culprit. Usually we buy a few tins to keep and perhaps RE was consuming the older versions (DHA from plant cells) until August or so and then unknowingly used the new ones with fish oil after that. I guess the gradual accumulative intake of the new fish oil DHA then resulted in the return of the eczema.

The dreaded Itch strikes back

The past two months, we noticed that RE is scratching more and it looks like his eczema is returning. Ahhh....

The hot weather is not helping either. It becomes more complicated when eczema is mixed with heat rash.

The past 9 months ( I think) i have cut down on his probiotic intake from daily to alternate days and his eczema condition continued to improve I tend to slack off on certain days forgetting to give him the probiotic. Regardless of what others say, I strongly feel that the intake of probiotic has significantly improve his eczema condition. Now that it looks like the evil eczema is returning, I have am increasing his probiotic intake to daily and looks like my cream applying days are back. Previously when his condition was better, application of cream was easy.

Last week RE had stomach flu and just as he recovers from the stomach flu, a saw breakout of rash all over his body. I am not sure if it is due to the aftermath of stomach flu or he came in contact with something that he is allergic to or the new after school care regime is contributing to the flare in his skin.

RE is allergic to seafood and eggs but we have been more relaxed about eggs as he has shown better tolerance in eggs. Previously a little egg is enough to make his mouth swells but not now. However, we still control his eggs intake whereby we allow him to eat it in small portions only. I found out that at the new after school care place, he has been given egg related dishes three times a week and I am not sure if this is one of the contributory factors to his recent flare ups. I will tell the teacher to take out egg completely from his diet for the time being and we will monitor it closely if egg is the culprit. If it is proven that egg is a problem, I guess I have to inform the paed to start looking for MMR vaccine that does not contain egg. In that case, RE cannot take the 3 in 1 dose and may have to take separate vaccination. Not only it will be more costly but I heard it is hard to source it.

Since RE no longer goes to the babysitter, management of his skin condition is less attentive. Because of the heat, he is also scratching a lot more and the most significant signs that the eczema has returned is his midnight scratch. On those good period, he hardly scratch at night, but lately I find him scratching 2-3 times at night. Recently, we have threatened that if the scratch continues, we may have to resort to the old management of sewing his pajamas long sleeve to minimize the severity of the scratch on his skin. Of course, he is not taking the idea favourably.

It is both disgusting and painful cum sad to see the condition of his skin. He has black patches on his abdominal areas as a result of scratch and skin healing. Scratching is also his way of dealing with emotional distress. We are trying very hard to teach him that scratching is not a way to express himself.

When he feels sleepy, he will start scratching. When he gets angry i.e does not get what he wants, he will start scratching. When he is stressed, he will start scratching. When he is hot, he starts scratching. A lot of time his scratchings are due to these various reasons and not the itch.

As he is older, his scratch is stronger and hence the skin becomes redder easier and also bleeds easier.

I pray and hope this is just a temporary phase and it is not a sign of his eczema returning.

Fireman Sam

Two weeks ago, I was awoken by some strange noise coming from the neighbour's house. It was like someone was pulling some wires. So I thought maybe he was going to vaccum the house...but then...who in the right mind will wake up at 6 am to vaccumm. I also heard something falling...but I did not really give it much thought. I waited for the vaccumm cleaner sound to come on and it never did.

After 10 mins or so, Hcp's mobile phone rang. As he answered the call, he rang downstairs and went out. Next thing I knew, he shouted from downstairs to ask me to get the boys up and out of the house. Neighbour's house on fire.

I quickly got up put on my bra and then woke JE up and decided to just carried him downstairs. I told him that he has to wake up. Hcp ran upstairs, woke RE up and told him that there is fire. Of course that does not mean anything to RE. RE went back to bed and Hcp had to shout at him. Then I took the two boys out. Hcp ran upstairs again to fetch some documents and then followed by me later own after he came down. We threw the documents into his car and he asked me to drive the car a little further away as his car would be blocking the fire engine.

I explained to the boys about what was going on. The altar at my neighbour's house caught fire. It was a shocked to see the huge angry orange flame in his living room. A few minutes after that the neighbour's brother arrived and quickly opened the gate. The neighbours were away on holiday. My other neighbour who woke Hcp, had reported to the Fire Dept. The brother tried to open to main door but as he was holding a huge bunch of keys, he did not know which was the key. So he broke the glass door. Fortunately he brought along the fire extinguisher. He went in the house and tried to extinguish the fire. The flame was strong and there was extreme heat. Hcp also tried to help. The fire was too strong that the extinguisher could not extinguish it properly. The house on fire was my neighbour on the right. I tried calling my left neighbour to wake them up as at that time we really did not know what will happen next. Hcp tried calling, no one picked up, I tried, no one picked up. After several attempts, suddenly I remembered that I have their daughter's number and called the daughter to inform them.

I told RE that Fireman Sam will be coming. I called the Fire Dept too as after 15 mins, still no sign of fire engine. Just after I made the call, we heard the siren. RE was so excited. By then it was about 6.30 a.m and when the other neighbours heard the loud siren..of course,all were curious and woke up.

Lucky the other neighbour was alert and realized something was wrong. It seems he could feel the heat from his master bedroom. It was also a fortunate thing that we were home. We got back from KL the night before and so did that neighbour. The neighbour whose house was on fire left for holidays the day we came back from ours. I dare not imagine if the three of us (houses) were away.

After this incident, Hcp is getting a fire extinguisher for the house. We also started talking about organizing emergency kits, ie placing important documents in easy access places, keys in strategic corners and etc. I also took this opportunity to talk to the boys about Fire and emergencies. I told RE and JE that should we wake them up suddenly, they are too follow our instructions and not argue further because that was what happened with RE...he argued and did not want to wake up to rush downstairs. Well we had a first hand experience of dashing out of the house with documents. I also learnt that if I hear strange noise...i should check it out...and not assume. We also realized that all cars should be moved away to clear the road for the fire engine to pass. The neighbour left his two cars by the road when he took off for holidays and we completely forgot about asking the other neighbours to move their car to clear the road. So that was another lesson learnt.

The damage on the neighbour's house was quite bad. The ceiling came down and the whole house is badly smoked. There was short circuit on the altar lights and somehow fire broke out.

So the fire was another additional highlight for the boys during the school hols besides the KL trip. RE was so excited to see those firemen, the hose and the fire engine right at his doorstep.

Hcp's work is in the field of safety and hazard and he has never agreed to me using the slow cooker to boil soup overnight or before I leave for work. Now with this incident, he has now called for strict ban on the use of slow cooker in the house. So there goes double boil soup from my menu.

Cheaters, bluffers, liars....

I realized that I share little about me in the blog. One interesting thing happened at work for me last week....in fact it was almost like a drama. I have consultancy project which involves conducting survey. In other words, I send out field workers (enumerators) to the street to interview people. The enumerators get paid and the respondents (the ppl they interview) will receive a voucher of the value equivalent to perhaps 10 sets of McValue Lunch.

We caught two of the field workers that we hired falsifying the survey. Instead of doing their job, I think they sat underneath a coconut tree and filled up those forms themselves. They then creatively created names and phone numbers. How could they be so stapid? We already told them that we will randomly call the respondents to verify. So when we randomly picked their pile of respondents to call, alarm bells started ringing when one after another of their respondents' contact number cannot be contacted/wrong number/ no such number. While it can happen that respondents give wrong number, it is unlikely that 90-99% of their respondents do that. As we also survey retailers, we find it impossible that retailers will give wrong contact numbers. So my research officer(RO) turned into a spy by visiting those retail outlet to check since she cannot get through them by phone. Voila...it was like opening a can of worms. One after another retailers denied having participated in the survey. Gosh...I felt so cheated and betrayed. Also...panic sets in as time was running out as the field work period was coming to an end soon.

My colleague and I called in the first enumerator (X) to ask her to explain herself after describing to her the stories that we found. X adamantly claim that she did her job and put the blame on the respondents for lying. X kept saying "oh my god...". We told her that we have years of experience in conducting survey and can sniff a cheat easily and that all our years of doing survey, never have we come across such high rates of uncontactable respondents. We gave her a few chance to be honest with us and X stood her ground...that she is innocent. We told her we will reconvene the meeting the following week as further investigation will be conducted. When we called X in that day, she did not realized that she was meeting us. She thought she was meeting my RO to submit her completed questionnaires which all field workers are asked to do every 10 days.

So after she left, we checked on the new 5 questionnaires that she brought in. All 4 cannot be contactable/wrong number. Then one number got through. The so called respondent recalled doing an interview and etc. The problem with this respondent was my RO claimed that it sounded so eerily familiar...sounded like X.

A few days after that, we found another cheater Y. Also the same thing all cannot be contactable except some. My RO went personally to the outlets to check and verify and sadly another can of worm.

To know what options we have and how to handle this fraud cases, we spoke to our legal advisers and we were given advice on how to handle it. We called the two girls in and this time, I asked my whole team to be present. During the first meeting with X it was only me and another colleague (both ladies). The other two male colleagues were not present. So this time, I wanted all four to be there and my male colleagues are definitely not going to be as diplomatic as my colleague and I were that day. In fact one of my male colleagues can be quite thuggish if you step on his tail.

So on the tribunal day: X came. She came with some story about pride and responsibilities. So we thought she will come clean. But we were wrong. When we asked her if she really did her work, again she said that she did all the work properly. We told her about us getting the legal dept involved and how this will affect her studentship should she found guilty. I also told her how once a proper report is written and submitted to the legal dept, we will have no control on how far the legal dept will take his case, she kept quiet. We also told her that actually we only need to prove 1 case and all her work will be disqualified. She kept quiet. Then suddenly, she had a phone call...it was in silent mode and she quickly dismissed it.

My colleague asked her who called. Then I knew. My colleague tried calling the number of the respondent which eerily sounded like her. So it was true then that she has stapidly put her own hp number as the respondent. She has two phones. So she was caught red handed. Initially she refused to answer my colleague's question. She claimed it was a friend who called. Then when my colleague broke the news...she was confused and started fidgeting on her phone. One of my very "ngok sei" (fierce) colleague told her not to try deleting the number. Only then...she admitted that she faked that questionnaire.

So we thought she will come clean now and let us know which ones she cheated, which ones she really did. Nope.... we were so wrong. Looks like X is a hard core seasoned cheater. Now she claims she only cheated 1, that one that we caught her. Anyway...guess what till the end she just said that she cheated one. However, as she was caught red handed, we told her that we could not trust her anymore and that all her work will be disqualified. So we asked for her to compensate all the vouchers that were meant for the respondents. We asked her to write a confession letter and state her promise to return the sum of money involved. The sum is not small..comes up to a few thousands.

My very fierce colleague gave him a piece of his mind. Well...not sure if X learns her lesson but at least, our damage is not monetary but just that we are now rushing for time to redo her lot of work.

Now, story of Y. Y also pretended that she did all her work properly. Since it was our first meeting, I described to her our findings and she pretended to be so surprise. Then, we asked her to take us to one of the shop that she claimed to have surveyed. My male collegues know that the shop no longer exist as the shop that she claimed to have done is located in one of my colleague's residential area and he knows the area very well. In fact, the area has only two rows of shops. It was then, that Y came clean. In a way, Y was cooperative. She came clean and told us which ones she cheated and which ones she did. Because she came clean without much problem, we took her word too. She was also very willing to return all the vouchers for the respondents that she falsified. Because she admitted, not all her work will be disqualified and she does not have to pay back all unlike X.

So now because of X and Y, we are suddenly a few "weeks" behind time. Thankfully there are a few enumerators who have completed their share and are more than happy to take up the extras. Also as a result, we the team members have to go to field too to help out. Oh...it has been a long time since I need to "turun padang"/ to personally do survey. Guess I have to put on my thick skin again and embrace all rejections positively.

RE's new routine

I was very anxious about RE's new routine. Looks like he has settled in quite well at his teacher's after school care. The teacher will take him home along with 5 other kids. This includes her own two grandsons who are also studying in the same kindy. One of them is RE's classmate. There is also another classmate of RE who goes there. Coincidentally the other child's mum also works in the same institution as me.

According to RE, when they get home (the teacher's house), they are given banana/some fruits to eat. Then it will be shower time where the maid will shower them and dress them up. After that it would be lunch prepared by the teacher. There would be chicken and vege and RE gave good reviews on the food served there. Homework time follows after lunch. When they finish their homework, they will sleep. RE says the nap time is short...so I guess it is perhaps an hour nap max. After that, they will have milk and some biscuits. The teacher will then do some revision with them.

On the first day, the teacher was very pleased with RE's participation during homework and revision time. Scratching is one problem that the teacher has to deal with. The dry and hazy weather is not helping. RE's eczema seems to have returned...it is moderate...not as severe as before. RE participate well there except on Friday when the teacher commented that RE showed lack of attention or interest to do his homework. RE in fact told a white lie...told the teacher that he forgot to bring the book to avoid doing his homework. Of course the teacher did not believe him. As a result, RE did not really concentrate on doing the maths and was making mistakes.

Well...I just hope that this arrangment will be a good thing for RE. I am concerned on his eczema as naturally he is not getting the tender loving care that he used to have at the babysitter. However at the same time, I feel that it is time that he learn to manage it especially when he enters Std. One, things are definitely not going to be so nice for him. For example now in school, his class room is air-conditioned, at the teacher's, the teacher makes sure that he sits under the fan and also in the car, he gets to sit the middle place to enjoy the air con. Then there is also the maid who will help to apply the creams for him. Also, during afternoon nap, the teacher decided to move him to sleep downstairs where she get watch out for him if he scratches. One afternoon, the teacher caught RE scratching profusely during afternoon nap (upstairs). She was shocked and decided that the next day onwards, RE to be moved downstairs so that she can stop him from scratching.

Speech Therapy #19: JE

It was on 12 June 2009. This time RE followed along too.

JE's Feedback
Therapist was concerned that JE did not seem to recognize many sounds. JE seems to be able to get less than 50% of the sound lotto game correctly. His "t" sounds is coming along very well. Therapist has started on "k" sounds with him but no sign of a "k" sound yet. She gave me the sound lotto CD and worksheet so that I can work with him at home. I find some of the sounds in the sound lotto is not clear and also it is not sounds that we usually hear/can hear. For example sounds of cutting paper, sawing, cutlery sounds, draining water in teh sink. Anyway will speak to the therapist more about the significance of this exercise.

RE's feedback
I was so surprised when the therapist commented that RE is quite chatty - offering information voluntarily. She has been the only one who has commented that RE talks. Non-family members have all commented that RE does not make a sound. I guess the therapist is really good in making RE open up to her. This is only the third time that RE has been with her.

To practise more with RE his "s" and "f" sounds in conversation. He has no more problem reading "s" and "f" sounds but forgets it in a conversation. She has also started with the blending sounds such as "ch", "bl", "pl", "cl", "sl" sounds. She gave me some worksheets to practise with him. Also she has given some worksheets on some tongue twister sorts of sentences to reinforce the "f" sounds.

Sch hols break - KL

A backdated post - obviously.

Took the boys to KL on the first week of the hols. Spent 5 days there. We call it a combo trip. I had to be in KL for work and since it was the school hols, we decided to also make it their holiday trip and JE's medical follow up trip.

This is the first time that I am the one working and Hcp had to keep the boys entertained for two days of the trip in KL. Coincidentally, my MIL was in KL, so Hcp roped in MIL for one day to help entertain the boys.

Medical front - we went for JE annual check up with the orthopaedic and the pediatric geneticist. We noticed that JE has flat feet, so we had it checked with the orthopaedic. Nothing serious as JE's flat feet is considered to flexible type. He also commented that many kids have flat feet and will soon outgrow it. As for the pediatric geneticist, we told him about JE's hearing loss. So two types of syndrome came to his mind. He says that usually eyes, hearing + kidney/heart will point to some syndromes. So he requested for a urine test and a ECG. We have done the ECG last year together with the echocardiogram (EKG). ECG was normal. Urine test..we found out recently to be normal too. So for the time being, the suspected syndromes are ruled out. Phew.

Holiday - Of course a ride in the LRT is a must. So Hcp and MIL took the boys to a short LRT ride. We stayed in Hotel Maya. As it was a working trip for me, I had hotel allowance and hence, we stayed in the hotel instead of at my parents'. We stayed at my parents' for the first night since we arrived KL quite late in the afternoon. Staying in the hotel on the first day would then be a waste. We were so thrilled that JE could pronounce Hotel May quite perfectly. Of the three nights in Hotel Maya, we arranged for my parents and sis to take care of the boys on a Friday night so that Hcp and I could have some couple time. I guess occasionally we just need that sort of "pak toh" time and that time was the best opportunity. So the boys slept over at my parents, while Hcp and I could enjoy the hotel stay for a night, a nice quiet dinner and a good movie together.

The boys did not sleep at all throughout the journey. This time it was JE who kept asking "where" as in where are we going. After some point, when he asks me "where", I asked him where he think we are going. So it was like he ask and answer the question himself.

Underwear

Ten days ago, JE started to insist on wearing underwear. I bought underwear for him about half a year ago. He did not quite like wearing it then. So I let it be. Anyway, I felt he is too young for it.

When he wears his underwear, he is very proud of it and love walking around with his underwear only.

Anyway, today, he took me by surprise when he held up his underwear and said, "underwear" when he walked out of the toilet after I have washed him.

Wow....never have I thought that I would be so happy to hear the word "underwear".

Now that he is into wearing underwear, I have to buy more underwears for him. RE only started wearing underwear when he was 5+...a little late start.

Barney song

Even though JE has been certified to be hearing impaired, sometimes I still cannot believe that he is. Most striking example is at bedtime. When I sing his bedtime songs, naturally I would be singing it very softly and yet, he will be able to identify it. One example is when I sing the Barney theme song.

Each time when I come to the third line of the song, "With a great big hug and a kiss from me to you", he would cuddle me/or give me the warmest hug and smack his lips on my cheek. I am supposed to get him to sleep and singing barney song isn't helping as he will be waiting for that particular line and he will do the actions.

However, as it is so nice to be hug and kiss by that lil fellow, I can't help singing it not once, twice but more than that. Heee...heee all for the sake of getting his hugs and kisses.

Another song is an Indonesian song that I sing to him since he was born. I modified the song and he will wait anxiously for the third line of the song and sometimes he will ask me to change the song. So instead of "koko RE sayang JE", he will sometimes request that I change it to "poh poh/kung-kung/grandma etc sayang JE". This song is magical as the minute I hum or sing the song when he is crying or throwing a tantrum, he will calm down almost instantly.

It is not going to be easy.....

After the parents teacher review meeting last week, we (Hcp and I and the school) have decided to change RE's after school routine. There is a great concern about RE in his academic development. So after the school holidays, RE will no longer go to the babysitter's but to follow his teacher home.

It is not an easy decision to make...but a decision we have to make. It was not easy breaking the news to the babysitter and also doing it so suddenly too. Our agreement was a month notice...so due to the short notice, I will be compensating her accordingly. RE did not like the idea too when I threw the idea to him. After some explanation, he seem to accept the idea. Anyway, will have to see if he really accept it when the time comes.

During the afternoons at the babysitter, RE does not do anything much besides watching the TV and playing with his cars. On good days, he will finish up his homework. Otherwise, I will have to coach him on his homework in the evenings. I would rather that he finishes his homework in the afternoon, so that in the evenings at home, I can do other things with him like just doing leisure reading. He sleeps less now...in fact, on average, he will sleep 2 out of the 5 afternoons at the babyistter.

At the meeting, the principal asked us what RE does in the afternoon and when I told her about it, she suggested that we let RE follow his class teacher home for a more personalized guidance as RE seems to respond better to one on one coaching. After all he is too shy to ask if he does not understand or is lost in the class. Also this way, it will ensure that RE gets his homework done. The class teacher is known to be a dedicated teacher but also a no nonsense teacher. The principal speaks highly of her and told me stories of how the teacher has helped weak students and also story of helping autistic children.

With the new routine, RE will not get to enjoy the pampering that he has been getting from the babysitter such as, bathed by the babysitter, babysitter to apply the creams for him, to scratch his back for him should he feel itchy when sleeping. In fact, RE will have to suddenly grow up and be independent and learn to manage his itch/ eczema.

The teacher takes in two other of RE's classmate and one of them is her own grandson. There are also another 4 more kids she takes in. Her daughter in law will help in the Mandarin while the teacher will handle the Maths and bahasa. I definitely need help in Mandarin as sometimes RE comes home with Mandarin homework which I am clueless on how to help him. At times I can only read part of the instructions and sometimes, I do not know what he is required to do. RE is alright with his Maths and for his bahasa, he just needs more illustrations of example which I believe the teacher will be able to do with him after school, in her place.

Further, since RE is an extremely shy and quiet boy, the school thinks that RE may get the opportunity to open up to his classmates while at the teacher's house since it is a smaller group. They cannot believe it that RE can be as boisterous and rough as any other boys. The class teacher was so suprised when I told her that RE kicks the ball, sing songs out loud and talks a lot at home. In class, it seems he never make a sound.

I am not sure if I am doing the right thing. Somehow I am inclined to think that if I continue to let him slip further academically, he may feel it is too much for him when he enters Std One - trying to catch up. The principal is asking us to seriously consider sending him to a national school instead as she thinks he would do well there compared to the chinese school. RE's chinese teacher commented that if we put him to chinese school, maybe we should consider a less competitive one...so that it gives him room to mature and catch up. The principal calls RE an "english" type of boy and not a "chinese" school type of boy.

Upon finding out that RE will be going to the chinese school, the principal asked the mandarin teacher to spend extra 15-30 minutes with RE after school perhaps 2-3 times a week. It was also then, the principal tried to persuade RE's class teacher to take RE into her wings (after school care).

Oh well...I just hope this new arrangement is a good move for RE.

Speech therapy #18: JE

It has been a month since JE's last therapy session. I cancelled the session before this as JE was down with asthma. So I was pretty excited to see the therapist as over the course of one month since the last session, there was a so called burst of vocab. JE could now say words with "p", "d", "t" and "b" quite effortlessly.

Cognitive - visual/auditory games
JE is given a game card of 4 x 3 matrix with different colours. Based on the card, he is supposed to take the appropriate coloured block and arrange it according to the picture card. He did pretty well. After completing 4 rounds, JE now has to listen to the instruction by the therapist on the sequence of the colour blocks and put it accordingly. This, he was a little inconsistent and needed guidance.

Computer game - comprehension
JE has to listen to a short story and then answer 10 questions. Unlike before, this time somehow he could get all the answers correct. Not sure if he was that lucky in guessing or he really understood the questions. It was those Yes/No questions.

Feedback
Therapist was very happy to see his progress and was amazed how clear his "t", "p" and "b" sounds were. Between "d" and "t", apparently, "t" is the harder sound but JE seems to do better with "t" than "p". I also told her about some of the spontaneous words that he says, i.e suddenly calling out 'stop" or stringing a full sentence without prompting e.g., "I want daddy". His "s" sounds is coming along quite well too but still need reminder and his "f" is still a work in progress.

Finally, after 18 sessions, JE could say a proper "bye-bye"...ooo what a joy for both the therapist and I to hear that.

Holiday - Mother's day weekend

During the mother's day weekend, we took the boys for a holiday to Andaman in Langkawi. My parents came along too and we all had a good time. The hotel is superb and I love their pool the best. The kids wading pool is fantastic...perfect for my boys who are still trying to gain confidence with water. The weather was alright...I guess at least we had one day of sunshine. It was a 3D 2N stay.





The room was spacious and they were nice to prepare two extra beds for the kids (FOC). In fact every room, a sofa bed is given. The hotel is located quite far away for "civilization". We had to drive about 20-25 minutes to the nearest shop. So, after the first night dinner, we decided that the next day lunch we will not venture out. So we went to the convenience store and bought cup noodles. Eating in the restaurants at the hotel will really burnt a hole in our pockets. I checked the price and the cheapest decent meal -a fried rice was Rm39 and a sandwich cheapest was RM42. Not only my parents' eyes will popped out, they will resort to fasting should we dine at the restaurant there.



Below, the pix of the boys enjoying their first time cup noodle experience. The 3 odd hours at the pool, really worked up their appetite and each of them wallop a cup of noodles. I gave them the noodles with minimum soup....and yet they still enjoyed it.








Breakfast was part of the package and the boys enjoyed their breakfast too especially my greedy boy, JE. Actually kids below 4 years old eat for free but we managed to get exemption for RE. RE is quite a picky eater and also a small eater.



We were introduced to a special monkey that apparently is only found in Langkawi and Philippines. It is called Calugo (or also known as the flying monkey). It is quite cute. There is very little write up about this monkey in the internet and I only found the picture of calugo from this site (http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeofjer/2903882673/)





We like the name "calugo" very much and since returning from Langkawi, we have given our ningkampoo (JE) a new nick name...Calugo...or curly Calugo. We have decided to leave JE's hair a little longer, to camouflage his hearing aid...and little did we realize that he has curly hair. this my be from Hcp's genes.

Martial Arts Part II

The kung fu demonstration of JE and RE.

Martial Arts part 1

Little did I know that I have a kung fu master in my household. So, let me introduce you to Sifu JE....






...and some video demonstration too....

to be continued in the next post...video of JE and the grand master sifu RE. Can't seem to upload the two videos into a single post.