27 Dec 2008 - Fun with slide

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that Tracy had brought Jerlene down to the park last week and they were having lots of fun. I missed that moment because I was working then. Today I cannot miss the chance anymore and brought Jerlene down to the park again. Jerlene was enjoying so much that she simply cannot stop, especially on the slide.
It was pretty hot so after playing for about 45mins, we decided to go back home. Of course Jerlene was very unwilling and I had to coax her. I actually told a white lie saying that I'll bring her for a swim later. I thought she would have forgotten by the time we reached home. However, I was wrong and the moment we stepped into our house, she immediately took out the float and passed it to me. I cannot bring her for a swim as she was still coughing. As such, I had to think of other things to distract her, like playing Wii! From now onwards, I cannot tell white lies to Jerlene anymore......she WILL remember!!!!

After the tiring fun time at the park, Jerlene felt asleep very soon.

26 Dec 2008 - Week 24 of pregnancy

After our shopping trip, we went straight to our appointment with gynae. The ultrasound scan showed that the baby was ok. His weight (abt 660g) and everything else is normal. However, one thing that continues to worry us is the low placenta. The gynae said that the placenta is still low and has high chance that baby cannot be delivered normally. In other words, may have to undergo C-Sect operation. Anyway, he also said that we have to wait till month 8 to confirm whether that would be the case. So I guess we just have to continue to monitor but we must prepare for it mentally.

26 Dec 2008 - Jerlene is active again!

Guess what woke me up today? It's Jerlene's singing. Yes, early in the morning when both Tracy and myself were still sleeping, I suddenly heard someone singing by my ear. When I opened my eyes, I saw Jerlene standing beside me singing. I was so happy to see that as it shows that Jerlene is feeling much better now. And she just go on and on, probably because she was not able to sing properly for the past few days.

Her running nose seems to have stopped though she still got a little bit of cough. Since she seems ok, we decided to go for the robinson sale. There was a bad traffic jam at cairnhill exit from CTE and we took almost 2 hours to reach Centerpoint. The sale started yesterday and most of the popular items have already been sold. We then walked over to OG which was also having a 20% storewide discount.
Jerlene is definitely feeling alright now because when it comes to shopping, she's the queen! I had a hard time catching up with her in the toys department. She found a mini stroller from a corner and that became her shopping basket.
I'm so happy that Jerlene is active again!!! :-)

25 Dec 2008 - What a Xmas!

Today is Christmas Day. But we are not able to enjoy because Jerlene is really not feeling very well. Her fever has gone down but her running nose and cough were getting worse. She has been crying almost the whole day and I tried all sorts of way to calm her down. I singed, I danced, I acted like a clown to calm her down. Sometimes it worked.......but not for too long. So I had to keep changing "patterns".

We are supposed to go for a Xmas party this evening but with Jerlene's current condition, we had to give that a miss.

24 Dec 2008 - Jerlene started to cough

Today is a half day workday. So after work, we immediately rushed back to pick up Jerlene from my MIL place. She was coughing very badly and her running nose is really bad. The mucus flowing out from her nose is like running water from the tap. I can sense that Jerlene is trying very hard to breathe. And when she sleeps, at times, she will suddenly wake up to catch her breath.

Really poor thing....... This is only Jerlene's second time falling sick. Hopefully she'll get well soon.

23 Dec 2008 - Jerlene still not feeling well

This morning when I woke up, Jerlene was lying beside me and I can feel the heat coming from her body. I immediately decided to take urgent leave and bring her to our PD. We thought the clinic would not be very crowded since it's a working day but we are very wrong. In fact, it was even more crowded than Sat when we usually go. We went to register for Jerlene and the receptionist told us that we may have to wait for 2 hrs or so.

Not choice, we waited. Although Jerlene is a bit "heated", she was still quite active. After waited for about an hour, we brought Jerlene out of the clinic to get a drink and change her diaper. When we went back to the clinic and asked how long more do we have to wait, guess what, they told us we have to wait another 2 hrs. My god, so total we waited for 4 hrs.

We were at the clinic at about 10:15am and by the turn we see the PD, it was about 2pm. The PD checked Jerlene and hear her lungs. Fortunately, her lung was cleared. It seems like she had an infection in her throat. The PD prescribed some medicine for Jerlene and asked us to monitor her over the holidays.

When we reached home, I quickly let Jerlene drink the medicine for fever, phlegm and open airways. Luckily, Jerlene loves medicine very much. Whenever I said "eat medicine", she becomes very excited and pulls me to where I put the medicine. At night, she started to have running nose but her fever seems to have gone down.

Btw, we have just signed up with cordlife to collect and store the cord blood for the baby for 21 years.

22 Dec 2008 - Jerlene needs more rest

Jerlene is still not feeling too good this morning. I had to go to work because I have a meeting to attend. Tracy stayed at home to take care of Jerlene. Anyway, she is entitled to 5 days paid child sick leave but my company does not have such benefit. Although I was physically in office, my heart is at home. No matter how, I had no mood to work. My colleague even heard me singing nursery rhythm to Jerlene over the phone.

I left early today to "fly" home to see Jerlene. The moment I stepped home, I saw Jerlene eating Macaroni. I was more relieved after seeing Jerlene finally taking some food. When I felt her forehead, I still felt that it was quite warm. Maybe she needs more rest.

Get well soon Jerlene!

21 Dec 2008 - Jerlene had high fever

This morning, Jerlene was not as active as usual and had refused to drink milk. When we felt her, we became very worried because she was feeling very very warm. It's obvious that she was having fever. So we quickly changed up and brought her to the clinic. When the doctor took her temperature, it was 39.2 degree celcius. We were so so worried. The doctor prescribed some medicine to bring down her temperature and for her flu and phlegm as well. We quickly went for our breakfast and then went home so that Jerlene can rest.

In the morning, she was really like a "fireball". After taking the medicine, her temperature dropped but when I felt her, she's still a bit warm. Since her fever did not go down completely, Tracy tried to put some cool pack on her forehead. She has two cool packs but Jerlene only wants the Hello Kitty one.

At times, she was still quite active but after a while, she will lie down to rest. I can sense that she was still quite weak. I'm still very worried because she did not eat much. Hopefully she will get better tomorrow when she wakes up.

Be strong, Jerlene! Get well soon!

20 Dec 2008 - Looking for Childcare Centre

Jerlene is coming to 2 years old and with the little prince coming on the way, we are thinking of putting Jerlene to a Childcare Centre. We have been doing a lot research of childcare centre and today, we have visited a few of them which are near my office.

One of them is Learning Vision at Changi Business Park. It's new and will be opened in Jan 09. They had an open house today. The whole environment is quite impressive and looks very professional. The place is huge and their curriculum is quite comprehensive. The only thing is it is pretty expensive.

The next one that we went to is The Orange Tree Preschool at Simei Eastpoint. The place is not as big as Learning Vision @ CBP but the fees is much more affordable. The curriculum is not too bad and it is sort of like a joint venture by Morris Allen Study Centres & Tien Hsia Language School, which are the two best-known professional language schools for children aged 3~16.

Below are some pictures taken at Eastpoint.

18 Dec 2008 - Drink from the cup

So far Jerlene has been drinking water from her water bottle with an attached straw. I decided to let her try drinking directly from a cup. Surprising, she did well for a start. She is able to hold the cup properly and slowly lift the cup towards her mouth. However after a while, she started to get a bit impatient and lifted the cup up too fast. Water flowed out from the cup and her shirt was all wet. I did not give up and let her try again after changing her shirt. With the earlier experience, this time she did much better........

15 Dec 2008 - Fun at the playground

Tracy was on leave today but I had to work. In the afternoon, she took Jerlene down to the nearby park to have some fun. Jerlene enjoyed the time there very much. Too bad I was not there to feel her joy. She can now go on the slide on her own. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't too good and they had to end the fun time earlier.

14 Dec 2008 - Pose for the camera

This morning, we went to Bottle Tree Park (the original one) for a walk. The surrounding air is good and refreshing. Jerlene started running around but I had to stop her because the ground was quite wet. As I've forgotten to bring my camera, I had to use my phone camera to capture Jerlene's morning smile. Best thing is, she will pose in front of camera without fail now. The moment she sees a camera pointing at her, she will stand very still and give her "best" smile. Quite comical......haha.......

10 Dec 2008 - Vocabulary advancement

Though Jerlene still cannot speak in sentences, her vocabulary seems to have improved quite tremendously over the past few weeks. She started to say words with two syllabus now. For example: Kitty, bubble, baby, giraffe, flower etc. I did not teach her most of those words, so very likely she has picked them up while watching those children videos. Every now and then, she will just blurt out some words that surprises me.

I believe very soon, she should be able to engage in some simple "kids" talk.

Btw, she loves wearing hat recently. :-)

8 Dec 2008 - DVD Sale

Last Sat, we went to AzTech building at Ubi to check out the DVD warehouse sale. There were lots of DVD selling from $8 each and VCD selling from $3 each. We knew of this sale from a magazine and our intention is to grab some DVDs distributed by InnoKidz as advertised. It includes titles such as Hi-5, Hello Kitty and Wheels on the Bus etc. We bought the different titles because we are not sure which one Jerlene is interested in.

When we played them at home, which one do you think Jerlene like most? You must be thinking it should be Hi-5 since I've been posting her Hi-5 moves. We are all wrong.......her favourite now is The Wheels on the Bus. She can watch it over and over again for hours. When I tried to switch it to other video, she will "scream" at me. By now, she had already "memorised" some of the lyrics.

Since Jerlene likes it so much and the Sale is still on (today is the last day), we went back to buy a few more. Below are what I've bought from the sale. You think I've bought a lot? Wait till you see those people there. The amount that they spent was in the hundreds.

7 Dec 2008 - Red Dynasty Paintball Park

Today is my first try in a paintball session. I have always wanted to try but never had a chance. So when my colleagues approached me, I decided to give it a try while I'm still able to. You know what, I am the "senior citizen" among the group. I think I'm more than 10 years older than all of them.

The session was held at Red Dynasty Paintball Park, which is located within Bottle Tree Park at Yishun. According to the website (http://www.weplaypaintball.com), this is the largest Paintball Arena in Singapore. We got 11 players and formed two teams. Our team lost the warm-up match but we won the next two objective matches. Anyway results aside, it was quite fun, especially when you managed to hit your opponents.

After the paintball session, I went home to wash up since the Park is quite near my place. At around 3:30pm, I brought Jerlene down to the pool for a swim as usual. We enjoyed a lot and we spent about 1 hour in the pool today. Luckily we went down earlier today, otherwise we will have to give it a miss because it started raining after we went home.

Not sure whether it was the paintball or the swim, I'm now having muscle ache at a few parts of my body. I tend to believe it was the former since the latter is a regular activity. This shows that I'm really lack in exercising and age is really catching up.

3 Dec 2008 - Anomaly Scan at week 20

I accompanied Tracy to Thomson Medical Centre for a detailed scan which is usually done during week 20 of pregnancy. This scan is carried out in order to look for any abnormalities in the baby’s structural development and growth, and to check the position of the placenta.

Our appointment is at 3pm but we waited till about 4pm before we went into the ultrasound scan room. The sonographer who attended to us looks very familiar and she seems to be the same sonographer who scan Jerlene previously. Anyway, as she scan through the different organs, she explained to us. The baby was facing down and she tried various ways to "turn" the baby over but failed. So she asked Tracy to go for a walk and she'll call us in about 20mins time to finish up the scan. After the entire scan was completed, we were given the report and we went to our gynae for explanation of the report. Here are some photos scanned during the session.

The report shows that everything is within the normal range which is great. But there is one statement in the report that poses a concern to us. It reads the placenta is low. Our gynae said that at this stage, it is still quite difficult to determine whether it will cause any problem in future because as baby grows, the expanding uterus naturally pulls the placenta away from the cervix. However, if the placenta is still low nearing the EDD, the baby cannot be born vaginally, ie need to undergo caesarean section.

Anyway, Tracy is advised to rest more, avoid walking too much, squatting and carry heavy things. Let's hope the placenta will "move" up in a few months time.

Btw, the gender of the baby is BOY if you want to know..... :-)