31 Mar 2010 - Happy 1st Birthday, Javier!

Javier was very cranky the whole of yesterday. Especially during the night, he cried every other hour and each time, it took us about half an hour to calm him down. He refused to eat most of the time except when he's really hungry. Though he drank some milk, he was crying all the way. I can really feel his pain and it's really hurting when we cannot do much. Sometimes really feel like crying with him......sigh......

Today he cried a little lesser but still had difficulty drinking milk from the bottle. So Tracy tried a different way. She let Javier drank from a straw. Initially it worked pretty well but after drinking about half a bottle, he refused to drink anymore. As his intake of food is really not sufficient, we decided to let him eat some ice-cream. And he LOVES it!!! After he finished the bowl of ice-cream, Tracy poured milk into the bowl and fed him. Probably he thought it's still ice-cream so he finished all the milk.

Anyway, no matter what happened, we still have to cheer up because........today is Javier's 1st BIRTHDAY!!!!!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAVIER!!!!! Let's forget about HFMD for a moment and enjoy!!!!!

We bought a Garfield cake for Javier as he had shown great interest whenever he sees Garfield. Jerlene was equally excited and cannot wait to sing the birthday song. Javier does not like to smile in front of a camera, unlike Jerlene who knows how to capture the best shot.... :)

After blowing the candle and cutting the cake, everybody had their share, including Javier. And guess what, he LOVES the cake! He enjoyed the cake so much that he seemed to have forgotten his pain. After he finished a piece, we took the bowl away and he screamed and shouted for more. Since today was his birthday, he gave him another piece and guess what, he wanted more after finishing it.......

We all had a great time having this small celebration. Hopefully, Javier will get better tomorrow. Cheers!

29 Mar 2010 - So sad, Javier got IT!

Sigh......even though we have tried our best to separate Javier from Jerlene the moment we suspected Jerlene had HFMD, it's probably still too late. Before going to work today, I got a call from my mom saying that Javier is now having fever (about 38 degree). When I heard that, first thing that came to my mind was, Javier probably got IT! True enough, when we were at the clinic with the doctor, we saw red spots in Javier's mouth, similar symptom as Jerlene last week.

When Jerlene got it last week, I have read a lot about HFMD and understand that the common incubation period (the time between infection and onset of symptoms) is from three to seven days. As such, very likely Javier had been infected by Jerlene before we separated them, which was three days ago. Now that both of them were "down", there is no need for "separation" anymore. So I've brought Javier back home with us.

In the afternoon, Javier's appetite started to fall. He refused to eat porridge, and even for milk, he only managed half of his normal quantity. Every now and then, he will start crying and we tried so hard to distract him. Javier, be brave! We know that you are in pain but daddy and mommy will always be by your side. Get well soon!

28 Mar 2010 - Jerlene getting better

Except for the very first day when she got HFMD, she is now back to her normal self and as active as ever. Although the ulcers in her mouth has still not subsided, her appetite is good which is a relief to me.

Originally we have planned to celebrate Javier's birthday today but it has to be postponed for obvious reason. So Jerlene got to play all the party stuffs by herself, including the life-size snoopy balloon. We have not seen Javier for one full day so we went down to my parent's place in the afternoon and took a peep, keeping Jerlene as far away as possible from Javier.

26 Mar 2010 - Poor Jerlene got HFMD!

This morning, Jerlene woke up very excited because she knew that her teachers will be bringing her class for an excursion today. She has been looking forward to this day since few days back. She volunteered to change to school T-Shirt and we left home earlier than normal because she got to reach school by 8:30am.

When we reached the school, somehow she became very quiet. The teacher took her temperature as per normal and found that she actually was having fever (37.9). And when the teacher checked on her throat, she saw some red spot around the throat and gum. I saw that too. As there was a recent confirmed case of Hand-Foot-Mouth Disease (HFMD) in the childcare, the teacher was not taking any chance and advise me to bring her to a doctor immediately. When I told Jerlene that she cannot go with her class, I can see that she was very disappointed. But I can also see that she understand because she was not feeling very well. So I quickly brought her to see a doctor and confirmed that it's really HFMD. She was given one week MC, which means she had to stay at home for the whole of next week.

HFMD is an infectious disease caused by certain viruses. It affects all age group but young children below 5 are more likely to be infected. HFMD is spread through direct contact with saliva, nasal discharge, faeces or the fluid from the blisters of an infected person. It can also be spread indirectly through articles contaminated by these secretions. From the news and doctor, we understand that there was an outbreak of HFMD currently, especially in childcare centres, kindergartens and schools.

For the whole of today, Jerlene's fever has been on and off. After taking paracetamol, her fever will go away but in about 4-5 hrs time, her temperature will go up again. Other than fever, her appetite was still quite ok and she was still active, which was a relief. I think Jerlene is considered mild case because she only got some mouth ulcers.
I understand that for some serious cases, the child will have rash (some with blisters) on the hands, feet and occasionally buttocks, arms and legs. Really hope that Jerlene can recover fast.

As HMFD is contagious, I had to leave Javier at my parent's place till Jerlene recovers, probably in a week's time. Actually thought of celebrating Javier's birthday this coming Sunday but most likely it had to be canceled or postponed.....sigh........

14 Mar 2010 - Javier loves to look out of the windows

Javier loves to look out of our living room's windows. He can stand behind the windows and stare outside for quite long. Not sure what he is actually looking at. But one of my nephew and one of my friend's daughter also loves looking out at the same windows, especially when there is MRT passing by.

Btw, I still cannot get used to Javier's cool cut. However, it's really nice to touch now. Everytime I see him, the first I'll do is to feel his hair.........uncontrollably....... :-)

7 Mar 2010 - 真命小和尚 lookalike?

This is Javier's new cool cut! Nice? Initially I did not quite use to it but after a while, I started to find him getting more and more adorable with this cool look. The shape of his head (pretty round) seems to go very well with such hair style. The more I look at him, the more I think he looks like a little monk in one of the chinese serial few years back called "真命小和尚". Even my helper also said he looks like a Shaolin kid! Haha.......no regrets......really cute.

7 Mar 2010 - My two little sweetpeas

Javier loves playing with all sorts of doors. My main gate doors, cupboard doors, shoe cabinet doors, play yard door etc etc........ Everytime before going out, he will crawl to my main gate and start pulling it. He really pulls very hard, as if he has been locked up in a prison. When Jerlene saw that, she also join in.........


We are going out to cut Jerlene's and Javier's hair today. My parents have been complaining for quite sometimes. As usual, we went to the hairsalon at Northpoint. Just before the haircut, I took quite a number of photos, especially for Javier because I intend to give him a "cool" cut this time...... :)

Jerlene wants to do everything herself, including buying the ticket at the machine. Jerlene was pretty eager to cut her hair because she has been complaining that her hair keeps poking her eyes.

The photos that I like most before the haircut are as follows. My little angels are so sweet.......don't you think so? :-)

Want to see how Javier looks like after the haircut........read my next post..........

6 Mar 2010 - Javier stands without support

Javier can now stand without support for quite a while. However, he is very lazy. Everytime we try to hold his hand and lead him to walk, he will sit down and crawl instead. And as I've said many times, he can really crawl very very fast! :-)

5 Mar 2010 - Jerlene's bad habit

We've been trying for almost a year to stop Jerlene from sucking her thumb but never succeeded. Jerlene's teacher at the childcare centre has also tried all sort of different ways to stop her but failed. They even tried putting "zambak" on her thumb......worked that time but subsequently, she still suck back her thumb. We cannot possibly be putting "zambak" on her thumb all the time right? Sigh.....

Since few months back, she had another bad habit. She started to bite her fingernails. Everytime we see her doing that, we will stop her but she will simply run away and do it by hiding on one corner. To make things worse, sometimes she even start to bite her toenails! Jerlene, please stop all these bad habits. It's all for your own good....... Patience patience........

1 Mar 2010 - Javier getting smarter

In less than a month's time, Javier will be one year old. So far, his development is pretty ok in general. In terms of responsiveness, he's more advanced than Jerlene during the same time but in terms of motor skills, Jerlene was much faster.
Javier knows how to clap and wave bye bye now. And he's also good at pointing. When he got "bullied" by Jerlene (for eg. sometimes Jerlene will snatch away a toy that he is holding), he will cry and point at Jerlene. Very funny........