Bedtime

It's quite a pain nowadays to get the 2 boys to go to bed early. If Caden misses his afternoon nap, he usually dozes off fairly quickly at night, so long I can get him settled down on bed with his eyes closed. Ethan on the other hand, will have his usual 3 hour nap after his lunch and morning class. As a result, he has been very alert even near 10pm (my benchmark is get to bed starting at 9pm).

Last night, after I am done with my work and shut down my laptop near 1030pm, Ethan was still hopping around in the bedroom (in the dark) and still asking for more toys/milk and whatever that he can think of. I decided to shut my eyes and lay still on bed pretending to have fallen asleep. Ethan called me almost 30 to 40 over times and shake me in vain to get me to talk to him.. eventually he gave up and fell asleep in just 1 minute after not hearing from him... he looks such an angel while sleeping..

Childhood

www.ben10.com

this is what my 2 boys are hooked on this period, pleading their PaPa to let them get onto the internet and play the online games available in this site. Caden can even tell me to go "www.ben10.com" when I pretended not to know which site to go..

Actually, it's really fun to play the games available on this site. I am just awfully amazed and envious the range of games, books, stuff that children get to enjoy nowadays. I was just chatting with my colleague this afternoon abt training chopsticks meant for children for them to learn how to hold chopsticks correctly. And these chopsticks do not come cheap, they cost abt $9-11 on the average. I did not grow up using training chopsticks so I don't quite see the need to pay $11 for a pair to train my sons. Likewise, I grew up playing jigsaw puzzles (that's probably the reason why I like to solve problems) but I haven't influenced my sons to like jigsaw puzzles. My boys get to play with remote control cars and thomas train sets..I like to get good sports shoes for the boys, but have not been able to bring myself to pay $59 to $69 for a pair of shoes (Nike, Adidas, New balance, etc). so not sure eventually will I go ahead and get a pair for them.

I just watched a documentary on Sunday which illustrated how much efforts China parents have gone through to send their children to gymnastics boarding school (which costs them a bomb). Kids as young as 5 years old (Caden's age) were being sent to the school, where they are left alone to take care of themselves as they go through a series of gymnastics training to mold them into the future country champions-to-be. It was evident that the children were not given too much free time for themselves but constant physical training throughout the day (with 3 hours of academic lessons). They are only allowed to go back to their hometown once every 6months and spend a few days back home before the next term begins. Most kids interviewed displayed a level of maturity despite their age and were very sensible. They knew that they need to practise hard enough to qualify for national team, failing which, the amount of money that their parents had paid will be gone to waste. The determination to succeed and fear of disappointing their parents were admirable. I am not sure when my 2 sons will have this mindset and be self-driven..

Mummy birthday

This is a posting done by Mr Papa. I have never really posted anything on this blog and will do it for my wife's birthday.

Both myself and wife took leave to celebrate her birthday. We went to catch the show "Inception" which was very mind-boggling. We had different opinion of how the show ended. We had a very nice dim sum lunch at Vivocity.

We brought the 2 kids out for dinner to celebrate. They always like Din Tai Fang, especially the xiao long bao which Caden can eat up to 6. Ethan only liked the skin (he will not eat the meat).

We also bought a cake back home to blow which the kids like very much.
I promised my wife to buy her a bag. In the end, she choose a "miu miu" bag (which I have never hear before) and asked her colleague to buy from London. Hope she likes the bag.

Thunderstorm

Last night during wee hours, thunderstorm hit our neighbourhood and it woke me up to shut the windows (my maid was happily in her slumberland!). When I popped over to Ethan's room, he was very much sound asleep and unaffected by the heavy downpour. When the lightning and thunder started to haunt us, abt ten minutes later, Ethan came crying to my room with his fav tiger toy and said he was scared scared.. then after he calmed down, he told me that he cannot get to sleep cos he saw the lightning from my windows. I had to draw down the curtains so that it blocked off the lightning and even had to helped to cover his ears.. Sigh.. it was supposed to be a heavenly time for sleep and it turned out to be so tiring.. Caden was so deep asleep and didn't had too much reaction from the thunderstorm.

Ethan stayed wide awake till 7am and I had to chase him out of the room for me to catch up on my sleep!

The Stye has burst

Ethan's eye styes final got burst since last sunday and this week Wed. Not sure if Dr's Sim skin infection antibiotics helped or it's just abt time that the styes got ripened and happened to burst. We were very relieved to see that happened as the final stage like really bad

this was the time that he had 2 eye styes 2 weeks back


this week Monday when the upper stye had burst and the lower stye got very big with pus formed (looked very much like a big pimple waiting to be burst)


Now he still have a small little bump and scar-like wound at the lower eyelid. Hopefully this will go off in 2 weeks time!

For this eye stye issue, we spent over $200 on Doctors' consultation!

3rd visit to the Pedi

This morning we went on a 3rd visit to the Pedi for Ethan's eye stye. It's official that his 2 styes did not become smaller and the left eye looks like it has developed a new stye. Mummy had to work late the last week and did not have a chance to have a good look at Ethan's condition since he was already asleep at night when I am back and still sleeping the next morning when we leave for work. Although my ah lou commented it was nothing when I realised it was so bad on Thurs morning, we finally get a chance to see Dr Sim today.

Dr Sim was briefed on the treatment that Ethan received from another Pedi during his absence (holidays) the week before (since Ethan had gotten high fever then) which he explained has got no relations with the eye stye. This round, Dr Sim prescibed a new eye drop which contains steriod to facilitate healing. If the styes do not go away in a week or 2, we will have to be referred to an eye specialist to get them examined. Reason why he did not want us to go at this stage was that he had come across a few cases where the stye only got smaller after a few months! And on contary, there were cases where the child had to undgergo a surgery to remove the stye! Sigh.. I hope things will be improved after administering this new eye drops, otherwise, we will have a string of worries on this.

And we were also cleared that Ethan only has a flow murmur instead of heart murmur which the other Pedi has alerted us during our visit to her clinic. But she had explained to us that sometimes when a child has high fever, the heart beat will be irregular so may not be a real case of heart murmur. Flow murmur seems like innocent heart murmur so Dr Sim has also told us not to be too worried. Thankfully, this confirmation came, as I was worried for a whole week day and night whenever I think abt the possibility of Ethan having a heart murmur.