The 40+ degC Scare

Just when I thought her fever dah baik, it went worse on Sunday. Temperature went up 38.8C, so I just gave PCM syrup, hoping that it would go down... but within 1/2 hr it shot up to 39.4C. Apa lagi, I inserted the Voltaren sup up her butt. The temperature went down a little bit, and then up again.. and after 5 hours, it went all the way to 39.2 or something... so since I just gave her the Voltaren 5 hours before, I just gave her PCM syrup and get Ja to mandikan Rayhana... managed to get the temperature down to 38 something.... then tak sampai sejam pastu the temperature rose to 40.1C

None of my kids has a 40+ degC before this. We always made sure that we keep the temperature below 40 all the time. But this time, teruk betul... and since she has been having fever for 4 days already, it's about time we went to the A&E at DSH to get the blood test and the H1N1 test. Ja was reluctant sebab kesian kat budak kecik tu. For me, it's better to get everything tested so kepala otak ni tenteram.

So, we went at around 11pm or so, did the blood test, -ve for Dengue. Her chest is clear, no wheezing. So next, had to do the H1N1 test. But the result will only be out petang esoknya. Yesterday, the result came out -ve for H1N1. Alhamdulillaaaaah... so it's the usual viral fever.. plus coughing and selsema...

The whole night last night and now, Rayhana is free of any sort of fever medication... yup.. she is already fever-free!! Has been fever-free for more than 12 hours now.

Hope she stays that way so we can just treat her cough/selsema/blocked nose next...

Demam Selsema Batuk

Rayyan started having fever up to 38C on Thursday night. Tetiba pulak his cough was phlegmy. Tried Syireen Rose's (a friend of mine and some others who read this blog) remedy for demam on her 4 kids which is just honey & any citrus juice (her daughter sebaya dengan Rayhana has never been given ubat klinik at all since birth).

Tried the first day with Rayyan but seemed not to be working... so bagi jugakla PCM syrup.. and Dr Azizi's usual formula... Clarityne in the morning, and Antamin at night, Flixonase nose spray and ventolin puff.

And since nampak macam viral fever with the cold and all, I gave him the "ubat denggi" herb capsules which are actually meant for any viral attack. Bukak 1/2 capsule, campur honey, tambah air sikit, syringed out 5ml.

Alhamdulillah, by Saturday morning, batuk dah teramat kurang, demam dah takde.

Rayhana picked up the fever on Friday. Dia lain sikit.. siap cirit-birit about 4-5 times a day. Demam pun teruk gak coz last night her temperature reached 39C+ twice. So had to masukkan Voltaren ubat buntut tu on the first occasion, but by the 2nd tu I almost masukkan the 2nd Voltaren but considering it was just not even 6 hours after the first one, I opted for the PCM syrup and let her go under warm/cold shower in the middle of the night... twice! Kesian kat dia...

Her cough is phlegmy... teruk lagi dari Rayyan... so now bagi the usual Dr Azizi's formula and the "ubat denggi" capsule... this morning (Sunday) the fever is not as bad as last night, but the cough is still there... kalau tak baik jugak besok, will bring her to see Dr Azizi.

But Rayhana's diarrhea has improved... no more watery stuff as of early this morning.

One thing that separates Rayyan and Rayhana apart bila bab demam/sakit ni... Rayyan dari dulu kalau demam tak merengek.... Rayhana.. masyaAllah.... both me and Ja tak tido the whole night last night. Is that really the "second child syndrome" or that we have outgrown over our "ketakutan" for every little illness the kids have so much so that we neglect the TLC the second born deserves as much as what we have given to our first before?

The 39 Clues

My love for this series of books started when I saw it at the London Book Fair last April. Last few weeks I saw the books again at the Scholastic Book Buffet event, Books 1 through 6 were available... I managed to squeeze all 6 books into the tiny Scholastic bag for RM49.90. That was a REAL bargain considering each book is being sold at MPH for RM39.90 a copy. So that's pretty much 80% discount I got at the book buffet.

So now, after reading all 6 books within a span of 5+ days, I'm in desperate need of more!! I have been "stuck" in the middle of the Krakatua vicinity in the island of Java for quite some time now and need to move on to the next clue!!

Found out that Books 7, 8, and 9 are available at MPH.. so I would probably go to MPH OneUtama to get hold of them right after picking Rayyan up from school today... so that's RM39.90 x 3 = RM119.70... way to much money to spend considering how much I spent on the last 6 books... hehe

Book 10 (the last one) will be out August 31 and people have started to pre-order them on Amazon.

Just found out last week that Steven Spielberg & Dreamworks will be producing a movie on Book 1 that is supposed to be out sometime next year!!

I've not been reading novels as much as I used to due to work and other commitments.. but this 39 Clues series got me worked up a whole new appetite for reading!! Biaq pilah orang kata buku budak2.. hehe.. a good book IS a good book.

Barang2ku dah sampai from Birmingham!

Fuh.. gila happy bila barang2 Mozard & Nana helped me ship from Birm sampai yesterday around 5pm... It took 2 months to reach me at my doorstep.. but can't complain though when you only pay GBP40 for 30kg of stuff, eh? VERY cheap, and professionally done by Malaysians in the UK. Don't know how much their margin is for charging so ciput.. tulah.. org Malaysia nak tolong org Malaysia... that should be the way!

Check out: http://www.crownaceuk.com

I used their service before in 2008 to ship about 4 boxes of different sizes and that cost us about GBP120 or something.... but that was from London. One of the partners himself dropped of the box to the hotel we stayed in in London.

Looking at the box which arrived yesterday, my barang-barang tak sampai setengah kotak pun... hehe but I had to ship jugak sebab dah tak muat bag masa kat Birm... tu belum nak spend my time in London another 1 week lagi... hehe

But Nana & Mozard stuffed their things to fill the box up to a maximum of 30kg... kalau tak penuh rugi je sebab dah bayar for 30kg... might as well top up sampai max.. hehe.. so tonight we'll be going to their parents' house to deliver the goods... :) Rayyan dah excited dah nak gi jumpa Hani.. hehe he thought we were going there last night itself!

The barang2 yang sampai was mostly Rayhana's stuff... coz girls punya barang2 so MAHAL in Malaysia... you get much better deals in the UK. Rayhana was excited terus dia nak pakai dia punya botol AVENT baru..... she said to everyone "BOTOL BARUUUUU" while drinking her air suam in it.. I bought 6 large AVENT bottles for GBP10.. that's about RM50 for 6 large AVENT bottles!! Sini the last time I bought one bottle was RM30.00 at One Utama.

Other stuff includes my work shirts I bought at Primark... and the shoes and clothes I bought after being poisoned by Nana & Mozard... hehe but they look good though... thanks for convincing me to buy those stuff and arrive in time as my birthday presents from myself.. haha I'm wearing the brown Dr Jurgens shoes to work today.. :)

Primary School Memories: Ouija Board

A Ouija board (/ˈwiːdʒiː/), from French "oui" and German "ja" also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with letters, numbers, and other symbols, supposedly used to communicate with spirits.

This happened when I was in Std 6. I was introduced to the Ouija Board few years before and somehow it came up again among few of my classmates when were 12. We took a piece of paper and wrote the letters and numbers, and the options YES and NO for the "spirits" to respond to our questions....

It so happened that during that day we had a Math test. We played our own version of the Ouija Board (there were about 4-5 of us) earlier on, I think during one of the free periods.. biasala kan Std 6 tu banyak free period as we already had our Penilaian Darjah 5 exam... so it was pretty much a "honeymoon year" for all of us... so terserlahlah kekreatifan masing-masing.. hehe

During the Ouija Board session, we asked several questions... and we got some answers. A girl in our group asked if she will pass her Math exam... the "spirit" moved the pointer (which was a piece of paper) towards "NO!"... kesian makcik tu.. right after the math exam, said that she was totally blanked during the exam...

Word got out to a prefect classmate of mine whose mom was one of the teachers that we were playing with the "spirits". Siap dia tarik tangan I all the way to the Staff Room... I somehow negotiated with him to let me go and I never got to see the teacher about it.

Rasa bersalah pulak sometimes that I didn't get to tell the girl that it was actually me who moved the pointer throughout the game ;)

... or did I really get any help from the "spirits"???

Primary School Memories: KGB

Last few days I have been communicating with friends from primary school (SK Kampung Tunku, Petaling Jaya) via Facebook. Kelakar jugak teringat how we once were... and how I wish my kids would have the same kind of fun I had.. all the good, the bad, etc...

There was this particular incident where somehow I was trapped in a group of "KGB suspects". Yup, KGB as in Komitet gosudarstvennoy bezopasnosti or Committee for State Security of Russia while we were either 10 or 11 years old. The KGB suspects were non other my fellow schoolmates who had somehow known some Russian secrets and have been tailed by KGB agents... according to him-lah.

I remembered we were scared tahap gaban punya when one incident led to another, and that we were not supposed to let other people know about what we knew or they would be trapped like me as well... tergolong dalam orang2 pelarian KGB ni... tu la pasal... nosy sangat on other people's business...

I was actually given the option by the leader in our small group (the main KGB suspect) of either staying out of their business, or be informed with consequences... unfortunately I chose the red pill... so after knowing the secrets... from then on I was scared gila babi... but still datang sekolah jugak to get the latest information... I also remembered him replying "hantar sekolah budak2 jahat". I never knew then there was such a thing... so I thought my dad was not serious. I never asked anything more after that.

There were few incidents that led to something and somehow the matter just died... no more news about the KGB, and my friend is still alive.. never been abducted by the KGBs or whatsoever. I wish I could remember the exact details of those incidents...

Rayhana's Colors & Letters & Numbers...

Am quite impressed in Rayhana's pace at learning new stuff... I guess it's the same with all kids these days...

Rayhana can now identify the colors BLUE, GREEN, YELLOW, PINK, PURPLE, BLACK, BROWN, ORANGE, RED.. and the letters A, B, C, K, L, M, O, P, S, U and X.

when she sees "B" she would go "boom boom", "L" she would go lalalalalala, "S" she would go ssssss with a hand waving in the shape of the letter S... hehe that's some of the strategies I use to make her remember stuff... hehe

I never teach any of my kids the letters according the order of the alphabet... to me it's not the natural way of recognizing letters. Rayyan could recognize all letters in the alphabet (upper case) before he reached 2 years old. And the way I taught Rayhana was definitely different than how I taught Rayyan... all depends on the situation, and the surroundings that fit the learning environment... and for me, I always start with the uppercase letters. Why? Because most letters you see in the signs everywhere you go i.e. logos like IKEA, TESCO, etc are all in uppercase... it makes much more sense to start with the uppercase.

Rayhana can up till now now count 1-10 in both Malay and English, and even sambung eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, sixteen, "eight nineteen", twenty... hehe

It does help that we send Rayhana to the nursery.. she does learn a lot more other stuff than I teach at home, coz I am waaaaaay to tired to teach her everyday... hahaha...

And since she now easily associates the letter "U" to "umbella", you can occasionally hear her mumbling "umbella", ella, ella, eh, eh, eh.... sorang2... :)

How we celebrated my birthday... :)

Yesterday was my birthday... pagi-pagi dah kena kejutkan Ja and the kids to get ready coz we're supposed to pick up my 11 year-old cousin at his house in Bandar Utama to go to Petrosains at KLCC together. We went the day before, together with my Mak Busu only to find that the ticket for the day has been sold out at around 3-4pm or so...

So bila sampai Suria KLCCat around 10.30am camtu we thought why don't we go for breakfast first since we hadn't had any.. and since Ja wanted to belanja.. I suggested breakfast at Dome... hehe

After breakfast, we went straight to Petrosains to get the tickets, and found that the next available tickets were for the 3.30pm slot. So had to wait berjam2 kat KLCC before we can actually go inside Petrosains (should have bought the tickets before breakfast). Lepas beli the Petrosains + Muzika (sort of like Pusat Sains Negara kind of attraction next door) combo tickets, we went into Muzika (boring...) and then found that we still have lots of time to kill before 3.30pm.

Apa lagi... Aquarialah... the 2 adult + 2 kid combo (Rayhana free) cost RM99.00 but since I used Maybank ATM card to pay, I just have to pay RM86.00.

Lepas Aquaria, still got more than an hour before 3.30pm. Ja belanja makan lunch kat Chakri Palace at Suria KLCC. It was just overpriced Thai lunch... nothing special..

Lepas makan, negotiated with the Muzika people to let us in again since lama lagi nak tunggu for the 3.30pm queue to start. nasib baik dia bagi since there were not many people inside.

At 3.30pm, went to the queue... pukul 4.30pm baru la dapat masuk.. not so much of the queue but punyala gila siput babi slow punya ride that was supposed to take us through a "Perjalanan Sekilas Masa".. lembab punya masa...

By the time we finished with Petrosains it was already 6.30pm. Minum kejap kat food court, pastu hantar my cousin balik and we got home at around 7.30pm.. too tired to think about dinner... so Ja had Felishia go out and buy KFC and a birthday cake... makan kat rumah je..

But the highlight of the whole weekend was reading the books I bought from the Scholastic Book Buffet at MidValley last Friday... THE 39 CLUES series.. I saw the books at London Book Fair.. and saw them on sale kat the book buffet, so apa lagi... beli terus all 6 books they had on sale.. (ada lagi 3 buku probably not on Malaysian shores yet.. and the last book (10th book) due to be out in August 2010). I'm already on my 5th book now.. AWESOME!! It only cost me RM49.90 for all six books, compared to the usual retail price of between US$13-16 for each of them.

Go to http://www.the39clues.com

5-day Daddy Day Care

Today it officially starts.... me having to take care of Rayhana as the nursery closes this one whole week due to cuti sekolah. Rayyan bila cuti I tak kisah sangat... he is independent.. lagipun I paid for his Genius Aulad 3-day "Finding Nemo Adventure" holiday program.. 2 hours a day.

Yesterday we went to Bangsar Village and signed Rayyan up for a 5-day iCamp at Children's Technology Workshop. The 3hr/day class starts this afternoon at 2.30pm. So after Genius Aulad finishes at 10.30am, I'll pick him up, balik rumah, rest, main, makan, salin, and off to Bangsar.

What is Children's Technology Workshop? http://ctworkshop.com.my/

Basically that place uses Lego to get the kids become little engineers, learning how to make stuff using Lego pieces, motors, hydraulics, etc and see it to work mechanically... and since Rayyan loves to invent stuffs... might as well get him to do something more fun... daripada dok menghabiskan selotape and masking tape, and lose all my scissors at home... :)

There is a promotion for the iCamp... kalau dah register for 1 kid, the kid gets to bring a friend for free.. so we get Sharat (Rayyan's cousin) to come as well.. but he will be joining the 4-5 yo class although he's only 3. Rayyan will be going to the 6-14 class.

Achum oolalla

Tengah malam tadi while Rayhana was still not sleepy and was playing with the pillows on the bed, I heard her sing.. achum oolalla.. achum oolalla... hahaha

Nasib baikla bapak dia kenal where that actually came from...

Burung kakak tua
Hinggap di jendela
Nenek sudah tua
Giginya tinggal dua

Letchum letchum letchum hulala
Letchum letchum letchum hulala
Letchum letchum letchum hulala
Burung kakak tua…

To confirm it, I actually sang the first line... Burung kakak... (I paused, expecting her to say "Tua").. and she did! And I continued with the song, and she would say tua/dua at the end of the next 3 lines..

Pastu masa Letchum, letchum, letchum.... she continued with oolalla... until the end of the song..

Hehehe.. she probably picked up the song from the nursery coz none of us taught her that song at home..

We sang a few more times after that and had good laughs just before she got bored and asked for Ja's t*t*k.. hehe

not too sure if Rayyan knows this song though... hmmm...

Rayhana's Kakak Alice

That's Rayhana's "Kakak Alice". Rayhana loves Alice in Wonderland. That's one of the two DVDs we bought recently that caught her attention, the other.. ASTROBOY.

Entah tetiba je dia panggil Kakak Alice.. hehe

Kalau masuk bilik nak tido je.. "Mama nak Kakak Alice".. she would watch mata tak berkelip, paying attention to the story... kekadang sampai terlelap.. kekadang Rayyan pun join sama, pastu Rayyan's turn to either pasang "Astroboy" or "UP", which suddenly dia minat balik.. after so long terperuk je CD tu...