Happy Eternally

2017-06-19T13:08:00.000+08:00

A blog is old school by today's standards. However, when I glanced through the memories stored in these posts today, they are most precious to me, and this experience (as of today) cannot be replicated by Facebook, which is now the de facto platform on which we post our memories and thoughts. Yes, there is the "On This Day" feature that recovers gems of memories, but nothing beats being able to look at the posts as and when I feel like.

I have been wanting to start a blog for a while, to record the things we learn and the challenges we face while taking care of Kang Heng. Looking back at this blog, there was only one post that described the initial years of Kang Heng. Hopefully I can be more hardworking and start writing down my thoughts and the experiences we go through: things like the VMS, the Hong Kong tongue acupuncture trips, the frustrations of inconsiderate people, and the appreciation of helpful people.

今天点滴的记录，汇成明天满满的回忆.....

Kang Heng

2010-01-15T00:36:00.004+08:00

I have two boys: the elder one a 5-yr-old who inspired the setting up of this blog, and the younger one a 22-month-old toddler that is the cute boy you see in the photo above.

His name is Koh Kang Heng (许康恒), because we wanted him to be healthy (健康，永恒). This is because Luck Heng the elder brother has been suffering quite a lot from ill-health, mostly due to the fact that he is attending pre-school, where we all know is a breeding ground for all sorts of germs and viruses to spread.

Kang Heng grew up pretty ok, but around the time when he was six months old, we noticed a little action that he seem to be doing frequently. He was bobbing his head once in a while, as if his neck muscles suddenly decided not to support the weight of the head. At our regular 6-month check up with the paediatrician, we mentioned it to him. However as the doctor could only imagine how it looked like from our description, he suggested it was just a weak neck (which is pretty common among 6-month-olds) and told us to just monitor.

As Kang Heng grew older, hand movement started to add to the occurrences of the head bobbing. Some people who see it thought it was rather cute (as with everything a baby does) and we did not think very much of it. At the same time, he was still not learning how to sit on his own, and mostly liked to laze on us whenever we carry him. We attributed all this to his 'laziness'.

Gradually, we started to see that the head bobbing and hand raising movements might look like something that is out of the ordinary. After a quick search on the Internet, we learnt of the condition known as Tic, a sudden nonrhythmic movement or vocalization involving discrete muscle groups. It did not look too serious, and some equate it to hiccups. As such, we just thought of leaving it to the 12-month checkup with the paediatrician.

At the 12-month checkup, while describing the symptoms to the paediatrician, the attacks came. After witnessing it for himself, the paediatrician immediately referred us to a neurologist paediatrician for follow-up check, as he suspects this is a form of infantile spasm.

Luckily, we were able to get an appointment with the neurologist the following day. We went back to research on infantile spasm, and the outlook did not look very good: the wikipedia page says that statistically 5 out of every 100 children with that do not survive beyond 5 years of age. Both Yoke Ping and I went to the neurologist with a heavy heart, and I remember I cried as I drove on CTE that day.

The neurologist looked at Kang Heng, and order a EEG Test. This is a test where we had to place multiple electrodes on the scalp of Kang Heng to record the activities of his brain wave. It was really a heart wrenching sight to see one's offspring with all those electrodes attached to the head, but what needs to be done, needs to be done.

The nurse recorded the brain waves under various conditions: awake, strobing lights, lights, dim lights, sleep etc. The most difficult part was to get Kang Heng to sleep. After some hours struggling in the EEG test room, we finally was able to get the recording done. The neurologist studied the report, and told us a slightly better news than we expected. The worst case scenario for such a EEG test is that it indicates disturbed brainwaves in all parts of the brain. In the case of Kang Heng, it seems to be localised in certain portions of the lower brain on the left and the right side. The diagnosis we get is "partial onset seizure".

To be sure about the diagnosis, the neurologist ordered an MRI test the following day. As such, the next after was spent trying to get Kang Heng to sleep on command again, since if he was awake, he would not keep still enough for the imaging in MRI to be captured properly. Kang Heng is one who will struggle a lot to keep himself awake, if he does not want to sleep when I try to rock him to sleep. The doctor gave some sedatives to make it easier for Kang Heng to go to sleep, but he kept on fighting it, shaking his head vigorously to keep awake. After some hours of struggling, he finally fell asleep, but both Yoke Ping and I were also exhausted. Finally the MRI was captured properly.

We had to go back to the neurologist a few days later for the MRI report. It turns out that the MRI report confirms the results of the EEG test, just that while one suggests that it is the malformation on the left temporal lobe that affected the right temporal lobe, the other suggests the reverse. It does not really matter. What matters is that we now know that both sides' temporal lobes had some malformation, and that is give rise to the seizure attacks.

I asked the neurologist does the malformation mean that Kang Heng will lose some functions in future. The answer is that the left and right temporal lobes are responsible for the language (or speech, I cannot remember clearly) functions of a person. However, due to this concept known as 'plasticity', the brain can try to use the 'good' portions around the malformed portions to try to compensate. The pre-condition is to keep the seizures in check such that the brain will stop using the malformed portions of the brain and start to learn to use the 'good' portions of the brain. Being a geek, I used the analogy of marking bad sectors on a harddisk and using other sectors around it to help myself understand this better. And the good news is that plasticity is higher the younger the person is. This means that as long as we are able to keep the seizures in check, there is a good chance that Kang Heng will be able to compensate for the loss of functions due to the malformed part of his brain.

Thus starts the regiment of giving Kang Heng the medications twice day. We started to give medication as instructed by the neurologist. The seizures still came at the rate of around 1 per day. Dosage was adjusted, and after a few days the frequency of the seizure was stretched slightly to 1 per 2 days. The cycle of adjusting dosage and sometimes medicine repeats, and along the way the frequency of seizure also fluctuates up and down. Sometimes it is once for 4 days, sometimes it is a series of 1 seizure for 3 consecutive days. Along the way, we simply followed the neurologist's advice to vary the dosage and also switch medicine when he finds that the original combination did not work well on Kang Heng.

These 2 video will give you a better idea of what happens when a seizure attacks.

He would usually start with being very daze and will not respond to our prompting. Then the area around eye brows and sometimes the nose will flush red. When the seizure comes, he will stare in space while the hands raise in the air for a few seconds. When he is in a sitting position, his head will bob (at around 0:12 position in the video).

We finally found one combination of medication plus dosage that successfully dragged the time between seizures to 4 weeks recently, however after that on 2 consecutive days he had 2 mild seizures with one twitch each.

While treating the seizure, the neurologist also pointed out in the first few visits that Kang Heng seemed to display traits of developmental delay. Specifically, at 12 months Kang Heng was not able to sit independently without external support. He recommended a physiotherapist to us, and we took up the advice.

The physiotherapy sessions started sometime in Mar or Apr 2009, and we really observe marked improvement in Kang Heng's gross motor skills over the months. By Dec 2009, he was able to sit, pull to stand, stand independently for a few seconds, cruise along furniture and take 2-3 steps independently. For a child with development delay, we think it is tremendous improvement, we have heartfelt thanks to the physiotherapist that helped us through this journey.

Other than gross motor skills, Kang Heng's speech and cognitive skills development are also delayed. We are now exploring starting speech therapy for Kang Heng, since he already starts to babble some unintelligible sounds. We have also queued up for a vacancy in one of the early intervention programmes, but still waiting.

My wife and me has accepted that Kang Heng may be slower in everything when compared to kids of the same age. However, luckily he is a rather happy kid, and we just let things take their own course. One thing for sure, every little progress he makes, that was easily taken for granted by parents of normal children, is a lot more appreciated by us.

Singapore Pledge

2009-08-09T17:48:00.000+08:00

Why wait until 8.22pm? Just do the pledge anytime you feel like it. :)

S-I-N-G-A-P-O-R-E!

2009-08-04T16:30:00.001+08:00

七情上面的吉他表演

2009-01-30T18:02:00.003+08:00

有一次乐恒在我的祖母（乐恒的曾祖母）面前玩了一段"Air Guitar",用双手在空中仿似弹吉它的模样。她给了我十块钱，要我买一个玩具吉他给乐恒。我找了很久，才发现市面上的玩具店并没有普遍售卖玩具吉他，而如果到ToysRUs购买，叫价竟然是百多块！

还好乐恒的祖母（我的母亲）知道了，到处去找，终于找到了下面照片里面的玩具吉他。

吉他一到手，乐恒竟然有款有形地拿起来弹。声音当然完全不对，但他的表情真的是七情上面！

大年初一带乐恒到曾祖母家拜年，顺道带上玩具吉他，让他表演。虽然似乎没有什么人在听他唱歌，但表演完后的掌声，让乐恒的眼中泛起满意的样子。真可爱！

When the yakking of Luck Heng is much appreciated

2009-01-25T10:30:00.002+08:00

The last few days had been grueling for me. Luck Heng began to feel uneasy on Thursday evening and started to throw-up and 'down-load' throughout the night. Every 30 mins, he will wake up with a slight groan that grows into loud wailing, as he complains of pain in the stomach. A few times that night, he ended up passing some motion onto his pants, which caused him to cry uncontrollably as he feels ashamed that such things should not be happening on a 5-yr-old like him.

Brought him to the doctor's on Friday and took care of him the whole of Friday and Saturday. Both days see him laying on the sofa listlessly, as if all the energy is zapped from him through the various episodes of vomit and diarrhoea. Nothing much went into his system, except for some porridge and bread.

On Saturday evening, he felt a little better, hence he threw a small tantrum when he saw his dinner was still porridge. He insisted that he wanted to have rice for dinner. Seeing that his fever from two days ago has subsided, we relented.

It was quite a mistake, because a few hours later, he threw up his dinner again, and that's when he said: "连晚餐都吐出来了。" Somehow though, after that episode, he had a good night's rest.

At around 6am today, both Yoke Ping and I were coincidentally woken up by different reasons, and so we decided to perform one task for Lunar New Year that we have not completed yet - to prepare the Ang Pows - at that time.

Just as we were counting the money, Luck Heng woke up and starting asking me if he could play his Lego Police Station. I was quite delighted, as the past two days he was so weak that he did not even have an inkling of interest in playing any of his toy. We left him on his own to play his toy, while we we busy with the Ang Pows.

As he played, the normal Luck Heng returned: he was yakking both to himself and to us. Usually we would find his yakking rather repetitive, some times boring, and at times irritating. However, this time we were both appreciating, as the return of the yakking means that he is more or less recovered!

乐恒的第一个演唱会 - 一次愉快的经历

2009-01-05T15:18:00.005+08:00

经过上星期的呼吁，有一位好心的姐姐看了乐恒可爱的video后，决定让出自己的演唱会门票给乐恒。我们在星期五傍晚带了乐恒在约定的时间地点和她见面，好让她把票交给我们。

之后的两天，乐恒一直在期待着星期天的来临，也不断的在车程中要求我一再的播放“五月天的新歌”。我也在博客看到台湾相信音乐的Joe的留言，叫我们可以不用担心，带乐恒去演唱会。但是因为没有留下联络方式，我也不知道该不该相信。

星期天下午，午觉过后，我就带着乐恒到演唱会会场。演唱会八点开始，我们六点到达，但已经是比好几千个粉丝迟了。反正迟也迟了，我就带乐恒到附近的购物中心买些点心当晚餐，回到会场，就学别人一样做在地上享用晚餐。

等了一回儿，会场开放，等了许久的粉丝们很有秩序的步入会场。到了我们入场时，只看到负责保安的工作人员，没有看到像是音乐公司的工作人员，我也没有询问是不是如Joe说的。

随着人群走向舞台，看到大群人们都挤到会场的中央，两侧竟然没什么人，我就拉着乐恒到了会场的左侧，很幸运的可以占到一个非常接近舞台左侧的地点。

环顾四周，会场算宽敞。头顶上乌云密布，但也因为这样，阵阵凉风习习吹来，让人觉得挺舒服的。但我心里也想，希望天气就一直保持在这样就好，如果下雨的话，就完了。

乐恒年纪小高度矮，要让他看到台上，我就必须想法子把他撑起来。十多公斤，说重不重，但如果要抱他一、两个小时，我是绝对没有办法做到的。很幸运的，我们所在的舞台左侧，就有将观众与工作区隔开的铁栏。我将乐恒抱上，坐在铁栏上，高度刚刚好！

乐恒开心地坐了一会儿，有一位保安人员有礼貌的提醒我们在演唱会进行时因为安全原因不可以这样坐。我就得开始动脑筋应该怎么办。突然我灵机一动，把带来的背包掛在自己前面，让乐恒坐上去。虽然这样做会让我腰酸，但也胜过用手抱。我就这样‘顶’着乐恒，听了前面的几首歌。

五月天开始表演，所唱的，都是乐恒热爱的歌曲：《疯狂世界》、《终结孤单》、《人生海海》、《倔强》等歌曲，乐恒都开心的唱着。这时有一位工作人员问我要不要让乐恒站在铁栏的另一面，一个小铁板上。我把乐恒抱过去，乐恒一站，高度刚刚好。又次很幸运的能够让乐恒和我更舒适地享受演唱会！

站在铁板上，乐恒更可以快乐的随着音乐跳起来。不一会儿，唱到《离开地球表面》，乐恒更是使劲地Jump!

接下来的歌曲，又有许多乐恒的最爱：《志明与春娇》、《垃圾车》、《出头天》、《恋爱ing》等，他都忘我地大声唱，大声笑。

工作区里的工作人员，也掏出电话，将他拍下来。我和这位工作人员交谈，他说看到乐恒这么小就几乎每一首歌曲都会唱，觉得很有趣。我告诉他乐恒的票是别人给的，因为我把他的video放上网。他就冒出一句：“你就是Joe说的那位！”

原来是真的！（在这里要向Joe道歉，因为之前对你的留言半信半疑。也要对给乐恒票的Joelle姐姐说对不起，害你没得出席这次的演唱会。）

工作人员还告诉我，原来是石头看到了我的网贴，请Joe转告新加坡的同事。五月天真的看到了乐恒给他们的话！真的很幸运！

原本以为是新歌飙唱会，只会唱新歌，应该不会搞到太迟，但竟然有bonus地唱了许多我们喜欢的旧歌。但乐恒毕竟还小，到了演唱会的尾声时也有点累了，但他却也坚持要听完全部的歌曲才肯回家。演唱会完后，他还问我：“为什么没有唱《私奔到月球》？”

回家之前，乐恒坚持要我吃完之前没吃的“晚餐”。我们父子俩就坐在室内体育馆的梯级上吃，也录了这一段话。

总的来说，乐恒那天的快乐是总总因素与许多不同的人所促成的。他经过这次愉快的经验后，也告诉我说一定要到八月的五月天演唱会去！

更多照片

O买尬！ (Oh My God!)

2008-12-29T01:54:00.003+08:00

“五月天，我没有去过你的演唱会。我很想去你的演唱会！”

其实乐恒不知道/不记得自己其实在妈咪肚子里时陪过爸爸妈妈去过一次五月天的演唱会。或许胎教这回事是真的吧，年纪小小的他自从一两年前就非常喜欢五月天的歌曲。有机会坐我的车，都会要求听五月天的歌；每天晚上临睡前，也常常哼唱几首给几个月大的弟弟听；连大人问他最喜欢看什么电视节目，答案只有1.DisneyPlayhouse 2.五月天的演唱会DVD。

这次在第一时间买了五月天的最新专辑之后，知道能够换取免费的新歌飙唱会门票，我也兴奋的告诉乐恒我可以带他去五月天的演唱会了。我弟弟也买了一张专辑，但因为有事不能去听，就把兑换券交给了我。

12月28日兑换门票，很兴奋的带了一家大小到Central购物中心去。虽然是比指定时间早一个半小时抵达，心里有数人龙必定会长。但万万没有料到有如此的长！沿着人龙从头一直走，在购物中心外转了两个角落，才在新加坡河畔看到了“龙尾”。Oh My God! 伤脑筋！

太阳并不留情，正好中午，很用力的将滋养万物的强烈光与热洒在我们身上。虽然有阳伞遮荫，却也只能稍微驱走一点点快将人煮熟的热气。乐恒小小的头，平时就很容易满头大汗，这时更是有如刚从浴室中出来一样的湿！为了鼓一鼓他的“士气”，我叫他唱了一首五月天的歌曲：

花了大约一个小时在烈日下排队之后，工作人员开始派票，也有叫人到排队的人群中提醒大家把CD和兑换券拿出来。我又仔细一看，才发现兑换券上的小字写着一张兑换券+CD换一张门票！一张票，当然不可能让乐恒独自去，但也不可能让一名成人带他去。Oh My God! 伤脑筋！

突然灵机一动，想起弟弟的兑换券，就希望工作人员可以看在乐恒才仅仅五岁就那么热爱五月天，再加上有兑换券不就证明有购买CD了，可以网开一面，让我们换两张门票。

不料，轮到我们换票时，工作人员还是遵守规则，只给了我一张门票。他们的尽责态度是对的，但我也暗暗为乐恒失望。没想到，乐恒竟然脱口说了一句：“爸爸，只有一张票，我们share share（共用）吧！” 这句话令我心中又喜又悲。喜的是平日对乐恒的教诲，玩具、东西都应该共用，他记得很清楚；悲的是，我这个做老爸的，既然让他有了期待，却不能让期待实现。Oh My God! 伤脑筋！

晚上回家途中乐恒突然对我说：“爸爸，我要跟你讲话：我没有去过五月天的演唱会，我很想去。”我就叫他录了一段话给五月天（上面第一个video）

希望五月天或滚石新加坡能听到乐恒的呼吁，完成他的心愿。

Merry Christmas to all!

2008-12-26T03:31:00.000+08:00

He cannot handle the truth!

2008-12-05T12:14:00.003+08:00

Photos we took during our visit to Science Center on 21 Nov 2008.

We first brought Luck Heng to the Science Center when he was about 3 years old. We made a mistake to also attempt to bring him to the OmniMax theater which was showing a movie on dinosaurs. We barely spent 5 mins after the beginning of the show, before Luck Heng screamed for us to leave the OmniMax theater - because he was horrified by the dinosaurs.

This fear of dinosaurs carried on until now. When we arrived at Science Center again a few Saturdays ago, what greeted us at the entrance was a huge mock-up T-Rex. We tried to convince Luck Heng to take a photo with the dinosaur but he resisted it. The picture you see him with Kang Heng and Mummy was taken at the end of the day, after he relaxed and got himself totally drenched at the WaterWorks exhibit area.

Most of the exhibits in Science Center could not really raise his interest, since I figure it was still too early to explain some of the principles behind the exhibits. What was on his mind was the WaterWorks portion (which he could see at the entrance of the Science Center. To make sure that he does not just rush through the rest of the exhibits, I set a time for us to visit WaterWorks - at 5pm, one hour before the close of Science Center.

Although Luck Heng did not understand many of the exhibits, another thing he was looking forward to was to see "the Earth". Some time ago I introduced to Luck Heng my favourite group MayDay (五月天), and they have a song "Crazy World" (疯狂世界), where there was a line: "I really really want to fly, to escape from this Crazy World". He started to ask me what is the "World". I introduced maps and the continents to him, and eventually told him that we live in a big ball known as "the Earth". I was thinking of brining him to the exhibit area where the model of the Sun, Earth and other planets are displayed to explain to him more on this topic.

However, we came upon another exhibit area which got me more interested - on Climate Change. I taught Luck Heng about having to save electricity, save water and not waste anything. There was one interactive display where one can rotate a dial to move through a timeline from 2001 to 2100, to show how Global Warming is affecting Earth through the various years, if we don't do anything now. The map of the Earth got Luck Heng interested, and I explained to him the significance of the red portions on the map. The main point he learnt from this is that if we waste electricity and water, the world will get very very hot.

That night, before he slept, he asked for me to sleep beside him. I asked him for the reason, and he told me he was worried that the world will get very very hot. I comforted him that if he does as he is told to save electricity and water and food and other things, the world will not be very very hot. This comforting did not work as he continued to get very upset, so much so that he starting crying and ended up throwing up his dinner and supper.

I did not know that the impact would have been so great on him, but good thing is that after he got over it, he still remembers that conservation is key in everything we do today, which I think is good education for him.

Fullhouse Symptoms

2008-10-20T16:36:00.005+08:00

When I brought Luck Heng home from school on Thursday evening, my neighbour talked to him and commented to me that he seemed quite tired. I attributed his quietness to shyness, and said goodbye to my neighbour after a few minutes.

That night, we discovered that Luck Heng was running a high fever. From past experiences, we know that once Luck Heng does not perspire, fever will come, so we were wishing and hoping that he starts to perspire again. He stayed at home on Friday, and luckily was pretty cheerful throughout the day, despite the fever going up and down. It was also a stroke of good luck that we came upon a DVD of his favourite Micky Mouse Clubhouse, featuring both Mandarin and English languages. Most of his time at home was entertained by how hilarious Donald Duck sounds in Mandarin (cannot decipher a word!) and the interesting translations from English (Toodles became 土豆).

Come Friday night, what we hoped for came true: he began to perspire, and the fever was officially over. I began to plan in my mind what we can do on Saturday, and asked where Luck Heng wanted to go. He said he wanted to stay at home. This was the same answer he gave one week ago when I asked him what he wanted to do after going out for a few consecutive Saturdays, so I did not think much about it.

On Saturday morning, I prepared his favourite sausage in hotdog bun as his breakfast, and he was happily munching it. I was still thinking of getting out of the house for lunch, since I was also "clamped up" at home for the last few days. However, in a short while, Anna (our domestic helper) told us that she noticed some red spots on Luck Heng's palms. We took a closer look, and found some spots on his palms, more on the outside of his elbow and even more on the feet and on the soles. We started to suspect that he contracted HFMD, but of course we needed to get someone to verify it. When Luck Heng knew he could possibly get HFMD, he broke into tears, because his worst nightmare came true - somehow some time in the past he got the idea that once one gets HFMD, an injection is a must.

We would have brought him to our family doctor, the GP at the clinic downstairs. However, he is off on Saturday afternoons, so after lunch I brought Luck Heng to CompassPoint, to see the doctor at Raffles Medical Clinic. I managed to convince him that it is not really necessary for an injection, unless it is a very serious case. However, when we knocked on the door to enter the doctor's room, the first thing he said was still a calm: "不要打针hor!"

The doctor was slightly amused, but went on to do his job to check the rashes. He checked Luck Heng's mouth too and told me "Fullhouse Symptom". I asked what that means. He said, it means that all 3 areas that can possible show symptoms showed the symptoms. Interesting phrase to learn.

Anyway, there was nothing much we could do, except to wait out the few days when Luck Heng still has the rashes. Doctor gave him some lozenges for sore throat and vitamin C to strengthen his immunity. The only to do was to have a psuedo-quarantine where I take care of Luck Heng exclusively and Yoke Ping take care of Kang Heng exclusively. We were hoping to not get Kang Heng infected, but the doctor said Luck Heng was contagious even during the fever days, so if there was any damage, it would have been done.

True enough, Kang Heng was subsequently diagnosed with HFMD today, but that's story for another post, after I get some photos of Kang Heng's spots.

乌龟爬，白兔跳

2008-08-27T09:57:00.003+08:00

乐恒 - 龟兔赛跑

乌龟爬白兔跳
长长路比赛跑
小白兔很骄傲半路上睡着了
小乌龟不停爬到最后竟先到
小乌龟哈哈笑
小白兔羞死了

我是小金鱼

2008-08-27T09:50:00.004+08:00

乐恒 - 我是小金鱼

我是小金鱼游在池塘里
游过来游过去总是不适意
努力游努力游游到小河
一天又一天到达大海边

入浴图

2008-08-11T18:19:00.001+08:00

实在让人忍不住笑了起来

From: OhMyBaby.blogspot.com

Luck Heng celebrates National Day

2008-08-08T16:50:00.001+08:00

Luck Heng's teachers began to remind us a few days ago to don him in the national colours today. Luck Heng himself was very excited about celebrating National Day, although he still does not really understand what the day is for.

Last weekend, we brought him to Suntec City for our regular Saturday family outing. As the afternoon draws, Yoke Ping and I were planning for our activities later in the day. Suddenly an idea strucked me - since we were in the vicinity of the parade area, why not just spend a few more hours and watch the aerial displays and the fireworks at the National Day Parade preview? We hanged around for a longer-than-usual time in Toys-R-Us at SunTec, and proceeded to walk to Marina Square for our dinner at around 5.45pm.

When we walked past the lobby of the SunTec convention centre, we were surprised that the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police marching contingents were doing their drill right there. A crowd has gathered, and it was something that Luck Heng enjoyed watching. The drill ended around 6pm, and we continued our walk toward Marine Square. Found a restaurant where we could sit down comfortably to take dinner. It is a Japanese restaurant (cannot remember the name) that is located beside Billy Bombers at level 2. Food was so-so, but Luck Heng liked his noodles and finished his portion a lot quicker than usual.

The timing was perfect, because if Luck Heng takes his usual more-than-an-hour meal, we would not be able to make it to the open area of Marine Sq opposite the Esplanade by 7pm. As we walked out, the thunderous sound of the fighter planes flying overhead got Luck Heng excited. The aerial display was really breath-taking, especially the stunt where 2 planes fly towards each other and try to miss. Luck Heng was so amused with it that he keep saying the planes will crash into each other.

After the planes, there was a lull period of around 30 mins. Luck Heng was a little bored, but the wait was worth it. At around 8pm, the fireworks came on and it was brilliant. Luck Heng even commented that the fireworks was like bursting right in front of his face.

Luck Heng returned home a happy child that night, but he keeps on reminding us, that it was not National Day yet.....

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Correcting Calendars

2008-07-31T16:03:00.004+08:00

Take a close look at the calendar below:

Take another look at this second calendar below:

What do you see? The first calendar is a table calendar for 2008, with the months of 2009 printed behind the last page. The second calendar is a lunar calendar, which is organised around the months of the lunar calendar. Lunar dates are printed in one column, the day-of-week in a second column and the dates of the normal (Gregorian calendar) in the last column. See the next photo for a more complete view of the calendar.

Still cannot see anything out of the ordinary?

In any case, such things usually escape the notice of adults, but with the recent obsession that Luck Heng has with calendars (I think I will write another post about the number of calendars we have at home), and the way he scrutinises every calendar, Luck Heng was really quick to point out discrepancies in both the calendars.

When he was staring at the 2009 calendar, he exclaimed "How come May does not have 31 har?" That's when I told him to correct the calendar by scribbling the numerals '31' on it.

The lunar calendar was given to Luck Heng when mother found out that he was spending extra time in her master bedroom toilet after doing his small business. He was fascinated with a new calendar format and was asking me on the details of the lunar calendar. My mother gave him a spare copy of the calendar to bring home. I pasted it on the wall beside his other Pooh Bear calendar, and before I knew it, he was telling Yoke Ping, how come Feb does not have '29'.

If you return to the second photo, you will see the first blue-yellow-pink columns depicting the days within the months of the first lunar month this Year of the Rat. When it crossed from 28 Feb 2008 is a Thursday, and 1 Mar 2008 is a Saturday, but somehow the calendar missed out 29 Feb and 1 Mar to 7 Mar was shifted one day up.

It amazes me that he pays so much attention to details..... :)

Does Kang Heng look like the baby in the pics?

2008-07-25T16:46:00.005+08:00

Take a look at Kang Heng in the picture with Luck Heng, and then take a look at the two pictures below. Does Kang Heng resemble the baby in the pictures? Guess who the baby is. :)

Trip to Singapore Flyer

2008-07-21T13:57:00.001+08:00

Inside the Singapore Flyer capsule

During one primary school friends' wedding, we mooted the idea of organising a trip to the Singapore Flyer, bringing our kids.

It finally materialized last Saturday 19 Jul 2008. We were lucky that the queue was not long that day, and somehow we managed to get one capsule all to ourselves.

Here's a short clip showing the inside of our capsule, see how the children shout and run around, if there was anyone not from our group in the capsule, he/she would probably ask for a refund at the end of the trip!

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我不要很多很多

2008-06-24T16:56:00.001+08:00

有一次乐恒的婆婆买了一包OREO给他之后，乐恒就对那黑黑但中间夹着白色奶油的饼干情有独钟。

有一日，他如往常一般地在下午洗澡之后享用下午茶点，小盘子里的OREO三两下子就被他扫光。我看了他一下，他也若有所思地看了看我，约三秒后才开口说：“爸爸，我不要很多很多。”
我奇怪：“很多什么？”
“我不要很多很多很多很多很多…”
玉冰问：“你不要很多很多，那你要什么？”
他伸出右手三根手指，咧开沾满黑色饼屑的小嘴，说道：“我只要多三个OREO！”
我们不禁笑了。

Growing Pains

2008-05-23T17:34:00.002+08:00

Growing Pains

Luck Heng has been complaining about pains on the inside of his knees and elbows on several occasions previously. In the beginning, I was skeptical and thought that he was faking it. However, knowing Luck Heng's character (he seldom lies, knowing that I get angry when he does), there is a very low chance that he was faking.

For sometime, I also suspected if it was a mild case of gout. I have this condition, and I know that it is hereditary. However, every time he gets an attack, he would want either Yoke Ping and me to message the area that is painful. A gout patient would not want even the gentlest fingers on the sore area that is attacked, so it is not likely to be gout too.

Yoke Ping mentioned that she read something about growing pains in a mothers' magazine. Discussions with friends having kids around the same age led to us discover that a boy we know is also suffering from this. The symptoms sound the same, according to both mothers.

Two nights ago, he woke up at 4am crying in the middle of the night of the pain again. It went on for more than 30 minutes. We got very worried, and was wondering if we should send Luck Heng to a doctor.

Seeing Luck Heng suffer so much, I tried to search in the Internet to see what can be done to help him. Funny thing is that Google returned many entries for the TV Sitcom Growing Pains, and the article linked at the top of this post was somewhere lower down the entries.

The symptoms described again seems right: waking with crying in the middle of the night, and no pain at all come daybreak; wanting to have someone to soothe him when in pain etc. So there was actually nothing much we could do but to comfort and soothe him. To distract him from the pain, I do what I do when I have an acute gout attack - bring him to the TV. Luckily that helped a little, and by 6am he was jumping around saying that he wanted to wash up and brush teeth for the new day.....by 6.30am he was back on our bed fast asleep until 9am. He must have been very tired from the disturbed sleep, but was too "hyper" at 6am to want to go back to sleep...:)

The fortunate thing about growing pains is that it is not a serious problem and it will go away as he grows up. The unfortunate thing is that when it happens, there is really little we can do to help him. Let's hope this passing phase goes away sooner.

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Nose Drop

2008-05-22T18:30:00.001+08:00

Kang Heng got the cold, probably from his brother. Because he is only 2 months old, we were worried and brought him to our pediatrician the very next day after running nose and coughing kept him up one night.

The doc prescribed a nose drop for him to de-congest the nose. Nurse asked me whether I used the nose drop before, and my answer was that I should have used it before (when Luck Heng was an infant) but forgot about it now. She simply went through the dosage and the number of times I should be giving the nose drop to Kang Heng.

Back at home, we were trying to administer the nose drop. Yoke Ping carried the baby, while I tried to aim the nose drop into Kang Heng's nostril. I was quite a marksman during army time (despite my high myopia and being in Pes C2), but this required a different kind of aiming skills, since the target was constantly moving as a function of how uncomfortable Kang Heng was.

I managed half a drop inside his right nostril, but apparently the medication was too uncomfortable for him and he started to move about a lot, as if to avoid the second drop in the other nostril. After some struggling and aiming at the nostril (and NOT the mouth that was opening and tonguing all through the time), I had to give up and wait for the next time to try again.

When the time came for the second nose drop, out of coincidence I drop the droplet on the top wall of the nostril, just enough for him to inhale it into the nostril on the next breath. Seeing that this is a workable, and much easier way to administer the nose drop, I tried it again and the result was the same.

So we still learn something new every day with the second child. :)

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Baby brother in pink

2008-05-16T15:56:00.002+08:00

This photo attracted a comment from the ThinkPink group on Flickr to join them. Incidentally the reason we used pink for the rocker was that it is a hand-me-down which have served both baby boys and baby girls.

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Baby Rocker

2008-05-15T17:49:00.002+08:00

A gift from my friends from WP. Thanks, you know who you are.

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[Screaming Kids Alert] video taken when 2 kids come together....

2008-05-13T10:47:00.001+08:00

Embedded Video

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康恒来了！

2008-03-19T10:43:00.005+08:00

39週的期待之后，乐恒的弟弟康恒终于在昨天（3月18日）瓜瓜坠地了。

宝宝出世之后的其中一件事，当然是给他拍了一系列的照片，然后上载到网上与亲戚朋友分享喜悦。

到访的亲友中有几个人说康恒和乐恒有几分相似，我自己第一次看到康恒时也有这种感觉，所以从相片库里找出乐恒当年的相片作对比：


康恒	乐恒

你说呢？像吗？