Hand Foot and Mouth?!

Rou developed a temperature and I had to medicate her for a few days. On day 3, her fever was still coming back after the effects of the medication wore off. I decided that at four and a half months, she was too young for me to self-medicate for too long, and took her to the doctor.

The doctor found an ulcer at the back of her throat, which she said was unusual. The diagnosis was that Rou probably caught the flu bug from all three of us, who were sick the week before. But the doctor did caution that if her brother had the Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease (HFMD) and it was a mild strain that escaped the detection of the doctor (since all symptoms don't show in its first few days), there is a possibility that the little girl could have caught it from Gabe.

Shuddering at the thought, but putting it at the back of our minds, we took her advise of continuing with the medication and she would be alright in another couple of days. Indeed, the fever left Rou on day 4 and she returned to her usual happy self. A day later, I was playing with her on the day bed, clapping her feet together in glee when something caught my eye. The soles of her feet were populated with red pokka dots! We lost no time in taking her to the doctor's, a separate one this time as Doc #1 was on vacation. It was inevitable. Rou was diagnosed with HFMD.

We prayed hard, yes we did. The poor little girl was barely five months old! Then came the planning to separate Gabe from his sister, should the virus spread to him too. He went to stay with my parents over the weekend (thank God it was the weekend) and the plan was to monitor Rou. If she broke out in blisters, we would have to extend the separation plan. Otherwise, which was the scenario we were fervently praying for, all would settle and life would be back to normal.

By God's abundant grace, the red dots on Rou's feet disappeared by half the same evening she was diagnosed, and by the next day, were gone completely. Many made attempts at theories but for what it was worth, she's cleared and in the pink of health.

This HMFD scare sure made us realise that control is not in our hands but in God's. We want to say thanks to all who kept our family in prayer, and for letting us know we were not alone.

Random Things About Rou

She's a typical baby that puts everything into her mouth. Has now learnt to grab your hand and stuff it into her mouth. And your clothes, and hair.

Much more "talkative" now. Can still remain quiet in service. So quiet in fact, that you hardly know she's there. She mostly sits through the two-hour long service every Sunday, sleeping in her pram or just kicking around in there when she's awake.

She was born with a really round head, so much so sleeping on the back of her head proved uncomfortable. She'd end up sleeping on her side of her face while flat on her back, which made it look like her neck was twisted so get into that position. Her head's not so round now. I suppose these months sleeping has "weathered" it down a little. But she does have a bald patch at the spot where her head has greatest contact with the bed when she lies on her back.

Rou's prone to rashes. A few pediatricians have diagnosed her with mild eczema. For a while, her neck (short and chubby) sported angry red lines and it took quite a while to be rid of it. But now at four months, they are now gone.

She's sensitive to heat. She perspires easily and gets irritable when she's too warm. Doesn't help when eczema flares in warm weather too.

She'll twist and turn to get a glimpse of the TV. She's determined in that sense.

Rou's sleeping positions are out of this world. It's so unfortunate I don't have pictures for keep sake. She's got crazy cot movements to add to that. On a single night, in the span of less than an hour, I found her covering most of her cot's grounds, including corners, and probably rotated more than 360 degrees to get that done.

She waves her free hand around when nursing and they can come slapping me in the face if I'm not alert.

4 Months Old

At four months old, Rou weighed 6.458kg and measured 61cm in length. I found myself being too caught up in the daily things to note down her developments. What a shame. In any case, these photos pretty much summed up her fourth month.

After a long afternoon nap, Rou gets to wriggle around and Gabe his milk drink on our bed. The kids are segregated in case Gabe accidentally hurts Rou when rolling around, while I rush off to get his milk in the kitchen.

Rou gets propped up on the day bed pretty often, and once in a while, the big brother would come and twiddle her toes, caress her cheeks, or just hang around.

Just before bedtime. Gabe gets bathed, dressed and he'll roll around a little on our bed. Rou gets cleaned and changed. Both kids share some moments before hitting the sack. Gabe would roll around her, hold her hands and they stare into each others' faces quite a bit.


Then he started (at this stage) to request to "bao bao meimei" each night.


One of Rou's last shots on the bouncer, wearing the gift from Jemmy and family. We tucked it away and made room for...

The birdie chair.. and...

The bumbo chair, which as to my usual practise, gets its imprint on pretty much every surface in the house.

Rou accompanying me in the kitchen as I wash up.

And with the family at the dinner table.

She's been doing all sorts of combinations of fingers in mouth. Seemed to have decided that the thumb is her favourite. Loved to smudge saliva all over her face. Also one of the last shots of her in a sarong. We kept it quite soon after she turned three months and made our bed her place for her daytime naps.

The pillows and bolsters arranged meticulously to ensure she won't kick herself off the bed, which she was fully capable of at this stage. We also had to pad up the sides of the cot to keep her from hurting herself.

She also slept on practically every sleepable surface in the house.

Favourite sleeping position: tummy down. Increased incidences of sleeping seven to eight hours in the night.

Bathtime!

Started flipping from tummy position to lying position. Rou's very active. Those legs and arms hardly get a rest.

Though a very smiley baby, Rou doesn't laugh out loud very often. We see an improvement in the laughing out loud in this month. She also started on some high pitched noises.

She's lost some baby fat, showing off that sharp little chin of hers.

Us as Rou turned four months old.

The time has come when Rou refused to lie down anymore. She sits up in the stroller and traffic watching at our window (on the birdie chair) began. There's increased attraction to the things happening around her. She would follow my hand actions when I sing to her, watch keenly as we flip the pages of books, and the tiniest sounds will distract her from her milk feeds. She began grabbing things within her reach, and especially loves plastic bags and clothes' sleeves. She loves looking into the mirror, and can obey instructions to lift her head and shoulders up in assistance when I need to carry her.

Four months. So much has happened. More to come!

Sleeping Through the Night

When Rou was being looked after by auntie during the confinement month, I wasn't too concerned with her sleeping patterns, since auntie would bring her to me every three hours for feeding. And when she fussed before the three hours were up, she would be taken care of so that I could get a good rest, and so she would be hungry enough to take a full meal. This was also part of the training to get her to take regular three-hourly meals. I knew that part of the strategy used by auntie (so that she too could get some rest) was to place Rou on the bouncer, on the bed next to her, so she would be able to rock her when she fussed. The little girl would hear nothing of sleeping in her cot in the night; she'd spend a maxiumum of 20 minutes in there. A part of me feared the consequences of this move since auntie would leave our family after the one month is up.

We shifted her cot into our bedroom the day auntie left and miraculously, Rou took to her cot as though there were no previous difficulties at all. She slept soundly and woke every three hours for her milk. After each feed, I would change her diapers, swaddle her, kiss her and tell her to go back to sleep, switch off the lights, and we'll have undisturbed sleep for another three-hour block. This basically went on for about a month or so after which she started to show signs of being able to sleep for longer stretches in the night. Her daytime naps also got more regular. Basically, she would have to go down for a nap after every 1.5 hours of awake time. Every afternoon, she would take a long three to four hour nap, which I try to coincide with Gabe's.

We started to train her to sleep on her own when she turned 8 weeks old. The main idea was not to carry or pat the child to sleep; she has to learn how to fall asleep on her own. So began the constant crying in the house, especially when we put her down for the night. We learnt, along the way, that she would be consoled if we went in periodcally to pat her back or butt. This method is known as controlled crying. But sometimes, our constant presence in and out of the room seemed to make her cry even more. She seemed to understand that crying would bring her some attention. So sometimes, we found that allowing her to cry it out worked better and there were countless occasions where she would be howling down the entire building and once we stepped out of the room, it would stop or die down considerably.

Now, at 3.5 months, Rou sleeps for about 6-7 hours through the night. She's not as formidable as Karen Cheng's #3, who sleeps 10 hours through the night at 8 weeks, and was trained in a matter of 4 days!! But alas, as her bedtime begins at around 9pm or 10pm, a six-hour stretch would mean that I have to still get up in the middle of the night. Waiting for the time to come when she will start sleeping through till morning...

In bed for the night, in her fourth month.

Boy or Girl

When Gabe was a baby, strangers would always ask if he was a girl. Now that I have a baby girl, they are all asking if she's a boy. What's wrong with my children, or should I ask, what's wrong with those people out there?!?!

Gabe in his 4th month

Rou in hers

Throw up!

I've got a merlion in my own house. Right from the beginning, Rou has demonstrated her abilities to throw up. The confinement auntie was very kind to take great care of the little one, burping her and being really gentle when changing carrying positions. Alas when she went home, and I took over the caregiving, I took cue from Gabe as a baby and took many things for granted. Things like burping the baby (I never burped Gabe and he was perfectly fine) and being gentle when rotating her from my right to my left arm. So as you can see where this is headed, I found myself mopping up floors, changing sheets, changing her, changing myself... It stinks, this regurgitated milk, and many times I've been caught dripping in them I don't know how to get to the bathroom without dirtying the rest of the house.

So lesson learnt: burp the baby and you'll have an easy time, even though you can end up sitting there for five to ten minutes just patting her back, it still beats all the cleaning up. And I've got to instruct all the beautiful people who carry Rou not to be too rough in play. I'll always have extra change for her, but I'm sure normal adults like us don't carry extra clean clothes around.

But one night, something unusual happened. The little girl threw up a grand total of four times in the span of three and a half hours. One episode had her lying face up on her cot and torrents of milk came up so quickly I couldn't respond fast enough. I saw her struggling to breathe as the material couldn't flow fast enough to the sides and threatened to descend back into her mouth and choke her. But the moment passed and we were so stunned at the mess we didn't know what to do. Urgh, the clean up was massive but we eventually made it through. Theory has it that it could be due to the formula milk we gave her that afternoon, and her stomach being used to the easily-digested breastmilk, couldn't handle the sudden intake. She was fine by morning though.

I'm sure I'll look back with nostalgia on this issue in time to come, so I should really relish each moment be it good or inconvenient eh?

Three Months Old

Rou is a happy baby, always smiling in response to anyone who talks or smiles to her. Especially a wonderful welcome when papa comes home in the evening.

Our monthly family portrait

Dressed up for church on Sunday. Finally able to fit into the lovely Zara shoes the Teos got for her at birth. Unfortunate though that she outgrew them pretty quickly.

Able to sit for short periods propped up. Does crunches on a perpetual basis, enough for everyone who sees her to comment on it. Most times, the crunches are accompanied by leg lifts, which further strengthens those stomach muscles.

She has more or less settled into a daily routine, with a long nap of 3-4 hours every afternoon. She sleeps better when placed on her tummy and we'd find her in lots of positions, this being one of them.

Rou's thighs are so fat I cant grab her legs to clean her butt well. She's also outgrown her first batch of home clothes and started wearing her brother's M sized old clothes. She dislikes having her face wiped (and totally hates it when you do it when she's tired) and gets into a traumatized cry when her face or head is covered, like when you are slow to pull a shirt over her face.


Loves it when waigong sings her gorgor's xiaoxiaozhu song.