A new year of illnesses

The year 2012 has started with a flurry.  Right off the Christmas festivities, we had a few days' holidays when the children stayed away from play-school.  Quality time, bonding time with them.  As much as we could have done so, given our limited energies and piling workload.

Not forgetting getting ready for the beckoning Lunar New Year, which happened to be a few weeks away.  We tidied the house whenever we had a chance, put up some decoration to immerse our tots into the occasion.  Compound that with the sudden extra load in housework.  You see - my mother had been helping us with the washing, ironing, cleaning and cooking on weekdays and she had a minor operation on her hand this time round which put her out of action for some time.  How untimely!

Against all odds, we braced ourselves for the Lunar New Year.  However, Rachel had to start falling ill and having a fever a couple of days before Lunar New Year Eve.  Her temperature had not been especially high and we put her on medication at home, hoping that the problem would run off by itself and she would be in the pink of health soon.  Little did we know...

"Sob...  sob..."  On the first day of Lunar New Year, Rachel came staggering into our room in tears.

"Very painful...  I can't walk..." she bawled, pointing to her calves.  She managed to be in high spirits for our visit to Yen's grandmother's that morning, but had not got a lot better that evening.  Yen and I took her to KK Women's and Children's Hospital that evening to get her seen by the doctors.  It turned out that her temperature had returned by then, but they could not diagnose anything immediately.  The doctor who attended to Rachel got a blood test bone with stronger medication given to our poor girl.

We had to stay an hour for the medicine to take effect.  We went for dinner at the only restaurant open there on the first day of the holidays, McDonald's.  By then, our elder jewel had started joking and smiling again.  She had visibly got better and after dinner, we returned to the doctor for a quick review.  The doctor discharge Rachel as she could not conclude if the problem had been dengue.  She only told us to continue to monitor our girl and get a second blood test done a week later if Rachel did not get any better.  Thankfully, Rachel did.

But that was not the end of the spate of problems we had.  Felix had started to run a temperature and had influenza by the time we sent Rachel to hospital too.  Although he got a little better soon, the buck was passed on to Kayleen.  Kayleen found time to fall off our bed when Yen made her sleep on our bed before she caught the illnesses, injuring her left cheek slightly.  Just when we thought all was fine and dandy, Felix complained of leg pain yesterday and had a slight temperature.

I crossed my fingers for the best for them, health-wise.  At least they managed to report all well this morning when we woke them up for play-school.  I am beginning to loathe the long holidays as it takes the swing of things from children, and illnesses find this the most opportune time to invade their little bodies!  There is little I can do to avoid this, it seems...

My wishes for them in 2012

Children grow up fast.  Way faster than I sometimes can cope with.  But they do, as the days pass us by.  Sigh.  I seem to have little choice as I wage a battle against time daily.  I hope I am doing enough to equip them with skills and knowledge they would need before they need them.

They have done well, if you ask me, this year.  Rachel has proved to be a good teacher-helper in school - helping to continually 'point out' her friends errors and asked by her teacher to help her friends with reading and some work.  She displayed her nerves and capability when she performed a few times near the end of the year and did not show any sign of stage-fright.

My hope for Rachel in 2012 would be to continue to learn well and learn fast - everything that is thrown in her way.  She will be facing yet another new experience in 2013 - starting primary school alone.  Being the eldest child, she is a little disadvantaged - there are no siblings to ease her into each new experience / situation.  I hope that she will be able to come up above the odds again, like the other times she had earlier.

Felix has improved in terms of concentration and had less frequent mood swings towards the second half of the year.  Though he continues to test my wife and me in terms of patience, we forgive him, like always.   In the new year, I hope he can be a more independent worker and improve more on his volatile mood.  An important area where he needs to improve in too is his frequency of bed wetting!  Enough said!

Kayleen has been getting rave reviews from her teachers in play-school almost everytime we meet them to speak about their progress.  They have been commending her on how much a leader she is to tots of her age. However, she is very dependent on the adults around her when she needs her simple everyday chores done, e.g. taking her clothes off, bathing, eating.

I hope she will take a renewed look at getting things done by herself in the new year.  She needs to cross the seemingly insurmountable hurdle of visiting the washroom to get her business done and step relying on her diapers.  That helps us, as parents, in cutting costs and the need to buy her diapers!  Also, I hope her passion for learning (in terms of reading and writing) can be miraculously ignited.  She is the only non-reader at home and I hope that can change in the coming year!

As their father, I am sure that our children have hopes for us in the new calendar year.  I reckon they will hope for us to be more patient, as well as spend more time with them!  I must keep this at the back of my mind as I approach tasks this year with them!