The Curious Case Of The Infection.

Jae developed a mild chicken pox early last week. At first even the GP we saw wasn't sure if it's chicken pox since her symptoms are suppressed by her vaccination. But after asking around we are quite sure it was chicken pox. The fever only lasted two nights and she only had little rash-like bumps on her tummy and knees. Other than that she was still hopping and climbing around.

Then came the second infection 3 days ago. She developed a 40 degree fever that doesn't go down even with paracetamol. For the first time, we saw her really tired from her fever. She would ask me to put her down on the bed and fall asleep on her own. On the third we decided to bring her to KK before the fever go any higher. The doc wasn't sure what infection she got since she didn't have any visible symptoms other than the fever. They even run a test on her urine to see if there's an infection there. Nothing. So we got a few more bottles of stronger painkillers and wait for the infection to run its own course. Luckily it only took another night before Jae get back to normal temperature.

I'm not sure why but eversince she's become very very clingy. Like a Koala. Didn't want to us to get more than a step away from her. It's quite tiring especially we have been trying to take care of her at home for the past two weeks.

Hopefully she'll get back to normal soon.

There goes the chicken

大头

Competition

Valentine's Dinner

It has became sort of a tradition for us to cook Valentine's day dinner back at home. Partly because we got our share of rip-off set dinners from our younger days but also because wifey's parents don't really plan for Valentine's Day. 

This year wifey took the effort to find out an "atas" butchery at Bukit Timah for our supply of steaks and ribs. All fresh air-flown meat from all over the world. If anyone's interested I can find out what's the shop's name. But I can tell you, after the succulent steaks I don't think I'll ever pay for another steak in restaurants. Fresh steak are so good you can actually eat it on its own. Yes, no need black pepper sambal mushroom rubbish sauce. Just be brave and get a rare cooked steak. The juices will retained and you'll realise that beef is actually sweet! Plus two pieces of 2in  Wagyu beef is only less than 14 bucks! 

Dessert was Nutella Crazy Cake. Loaded with Nutella chocolate and nuts. We caught Geraldine and Jae quietly nibbing the cake while we were enjoying our steaks. It was so funny. Two of them went quiet suddenly and I wondered where were the two rascals. Lifted up the bind and saw two rats nibbing a corner of the cake at the kitchen!

I wish I got a photo that. Would be classic!

Anyway, happy belated Valentine's Day

Our World With Jae

New Single - We R Baseks!

Written and performed by Geraldine. MTV directed and cheorographed by Jae.

Lyrics:

oOOOOOO

hOOOO

Basek ya basek

we the basek

ah children ah children

basek basek

we are basek

a...errrr...

......

basek

ah basek ah basek

we the basek

....

***************************************************************************

Review:

Through this song, the young talented songwriter invites us to take a philosophical look at our existence in this world; that we are in fact nothing more than just empty baskets. Geraldine also mentioned in her song that Mother Earth wants her children to learn the true value of themselves. The ending was masterstroke by Director Jae that clearly illustrates to us that we can indeed have a choice to be bags instead of empty "baseks"; bags that are worthed fighting and crying over. Geraldine's clever use of local slang will appeal to the mass and send this great single tearing through the charts! Brilliant! Five stars! I strongly recommend getting the album!

- Producer of Ya-da Ya-da Ball studio

How to fill the huge warehouse of Ikea?

The whole place was filled with Jae's laughter and babblings. Luckily it was 9pm and there weren't much people around the store. Jae was going crazy with the toys and push carts.

Three Syllabus

Jae's grown a lot this week. Throughout the whole week of spending time with her at home and relatives' places, I noticed she's picking up things at an amazing pace. First she started calling me "Daddy". Then she amused us with "no more" along with the gesture whenever something finished or someone's gone. She's also starting to pick up the difference in meaning when different nouns are placed at the start of the sentence. For example, she knows "Daddy give...wait," is different from "Jae...give Daddy".

Today she was refining her "flower" when we were at Sentosa's flower exhibition. She even attempted to pronounce "fly away" I told her the birds were flying away. That's three syllabus! 

I'm so proud of my little girl!

Bits & Pieces

Teaching the kid to burp like a man...woman also can!

The Most Accurate Thermometer In The Whole Universe

It's my turn to take care of the kid while mummy's away for two full days of company retreat. I was actually looking forward to some quality time with the kid. I was even thinking of going shopping with her. Maybe she can give me some advice of some new year clothes to buy.

The first night was rather pleasant. I brought her back from the center and gave her some cookies. She was visibly tired. God knows why but she was cuddling up my lap and quietly watching the TV. No tantrums. No unnecessary crying. That was a bliss. Dinnertime came and I cooked the "instant" rice Mummy bought for her. I thought it was quite interesting because it came out of the bag powdery but after 3 minutes of boiling it became porridge! Like magic! Sadly the taste was nowhere near magical. No choice. There was nothing else in the house I can feed her. Thank god she ate everything without much complaint. 

Today morning Jae woke up feeling feverish all over. It was then I realize why she looked so tired yesterday. The cough bug she caught from the center few days ago must have caught up with her. I didn't think much about the fever because my digital thermometer was showing a slight 0.1 increase. She felt more than 0.1 to me but I thought I could be wrong. So I went about the usual routine of packing her school bag, change her and then bring her to the center. I thought I could go to work after that. But surprise surprise my digital thermometer clamped under Jae's armpit didn't work as good as the Braun Thermoscan ear infra-red thermometer. 38 degrees was the verdict. The result: I have to bring her home. 

I thought the fever will go away by itself. So I gave her some milk and pack her back to sleep. She woke up in the afternoon feeling even more feverish. My not-very-accurate thermometer said she's only 37.5. Grrr. So after I gave her some paracetamol I decided to pack the bags and bring her back to my in-law's place. At least grandma can cook something decent for her. 

The first thing I did after Jae settled down at grandma's place was to go to the mall and buy a Braun thermoscan. I told mummy to get one months ago. It never happened. Now I've got the most expensive thermometer I ever lay my hands on.

Perhaps also the most expensive one in the whole universe

Dad Mee Shoo Dah

Since the last time I talked about Jae's vocab, she has improved by a lot. Now she's much more capable of expressing herself. Words like dad, mee (mummy), dat (cat), there, woah, dah (car), shoo (shoes) and bee (baby doll) are part of her daily speech. She even attempts to mimic our speech and try to pronounce two syllabus words like diaper and apple.

Maybe, just maybe, the zoo-phonics from GUG is working. But I'm still skeptical about it.

Hopefully the little girl will grow up to be more linguistically talented than her parents.