Playground Evening... as promised

 Yesterday, Little Jen got cranky cause I told him to play just outside the house. He could cycle, skate or do some gardening but he was not happy. He wanted to go to the playground. 

So, today, we did visit the playground. Got off work on time, prepared dinner and filled them all up. It was playground time thereafter and it lasted for about 45 minutes Within that period of time, Little Jen did all below: 

First, he cycled around. 

Second, he toyed with his new Chinese diablo aka Chinese yo-yo. I was quite amazed at how fast he picked up some basic skills on his own via You Tube videos and was soon having some fun with it. By the way, I got him a new set (in fact 3 sets in total with 2 as spare sets...) as he sort of broke his first set. He was so excited and said, "Wow, Mummy... this is like the one professionals play with...!" with a wide smile on his mischievous face. 

Third, he went home and came back with his roller skates. He was getting bored and needed to move on to a new activity. 

Finally, he sat down and started chit chatting with some older boys at the playground. 

To me, it was little time but he managed to take the opportunity to do so much. HE ALMOST MOVED ALL HIS 'TOYS' TO THE PLAYGROUND! 

As I am writing this close to our bedtime, he is watching TV while bouncing on the gym ball. 

What do I do with his super high energy level? He is not that hyperactive type but he will just be on the move most of the time. I rarely see him idling by doing nothing or just dreaming blankly. 

As long as he is happy, I believe he will grow up to be a independent fella with loads of positive thoughts despite his ADHD-ness. 👽 

Movie Night ended .. not so happily there after

It was one of those rare nights that I would ask the whole family for a movie. Came across an interesting-looking thriller story on Netflix and I called for a movie night after dinner. 

Halfway thru, we had a break for supper. Korean instant ramen it was. A huge pot for all to share and we got back to watching our movie thereafter. 

At the end of the movie, Little Jen pestered me for a game of Happy Family, but it was almost midnight then. I was tired and him, as usual not ready to retreat to bed yet. A no from me made him complained that he would have to wait for another week before he could ask for a game of Happy Family with me again. 

Before I could go on, Dad got angry and stomped upstairs after muttering some angry words. 

That stress was really getting into my brain. One was complaining and whining non stop and another was furious. I chose to spend my time with Candy Crush and my art? I surrendered for the night, needed a break. 

Probably I could have said yes to a game of Happy Family? Or I should never have called for a family movie night. Tomorrow would be a new day and another new episode. What would the theme be tomorrow?  

Good night... 😭

He has dreams... I am sort of relieved?

Picked him up from his tuition class and we packed some supper for the family. While waiting in the car for our sinful supper (roti telur with ayam goreng, roti bom cheese, roti goreng, maggi goreng, roti empat segi), he requested for Canon in D to be played. 

He then started criticizing that the version I turned on for him was more Canon in E.. with E major instead of D? Oh, I had no idea at all. Call me music-deaf. Fine, another version? He was okay with the other version and confirmed that it was in D Major. 

It was good to know he enjoyed music. "Mummy, what if I want to learn all music instruments in my lifetime? Can I?" "Of course, no reason not to. You may start with piano and move on... and think of what you wish to be in the future..." 

The next song I selected was Monster - Katie Sky. It was a really nice, comforting song, imagine that someone would be there when you needed help. "Little Jen, you know.. you can be a composer too. Make music, leave the lyrics to others if you wish to. You may be famous 😌". 

"No, Mummy. I don't want to be famous. I just want to be by your side. Be with you". 

That was sweet. But I suddenly had a thought days after the fact that he had mild ADHD sunk into me. I needed to spend more time with him, to support him in order for him to be happy and independent. A lifetime of my own would not be enough, unfortunately. I would just have to catch up! Learn up and keep up with him. 

Today is the 8th day since he was diagnosed, I am definitely feeling better and he is no longer having those weird thoughts. 

"Mummy, I have ADHD. Does it mean I am stupid?" He rarely asked questions like that. Conversation with him had always been somehow positive or at least how he wanted it to be like. This time, it was different. He realized that he came back to the same home but Mummy seemed more disturbed than usual. Gosh, I missed out on my part of explanation on ADHD for his understanding. 

"No, Little Jen. You are just a little different. Let us work together on the differences. In fact, you are a really intelligent boy. You know that and never doubt yourself". 

19th November 2020 - The Day My Little Jen was 'certified' with mild ADHD

He asked me the night before, "Why do you need to bring me to the Doctor, Mummy". I kept silent but Little Jas just blurted out "...cause Mummy said you were naught." 

He threw a tantrum and said, "Mummy, how could you? You know what that meant..." and he went on. 

Stopped him there and corrected him. I decided to bring him to the Doctor cause I needed him to get a proper diagnosis. I needed to know if he was just plain lazy, forgetful and careless or he actually had ADHD. How did I even know that &*^$#$^ word... ADHD? 

Little Jen is now 10 year old (yes, I stopped blogging since 2014 and I am back) and the complaints I heard from his educators were consistent, regardless of who, what subject, which level... similar. 

Kindy: "He would just sit at his desk and throw all his stationery out on the table before he starts any writing, quite a mess. If only he could be a little more organized..."

Primary 1-3: "I tried reprimanding him, I tried motivating him, I tried to make him do his homework. But, it seemed like nothing worked. He would not hand in his homework and it went on since Primary 1. I have been his class teacher since he was in Primary 1 and he seemed to have gotten worse. Maybe I am not the right teacher for him. Or maybe..... you could get him tested in case he has any learning difficulties. My own son has dyslexia, maybe he has it?"

Imagine what I felt when I heard that. He heard and seemed really hurt too. 

That was when I begun doing my research about learning disability. I was very confident that he had no dyslexia cause he could read and spell well. He had problems with punctuation marks, capital and small letters, those little things but not with reading and ABCs. I stumbled upon ADHD... ADD... Asperger's... autism... 

In Primary 4, he received similar complaints about homework, stationery, attentiveness and such from his new class teacher. I was angry at him and reprimanded him for the complaints. 

By March, we were all confined to our homes due to the Movement Restriction Order in a battle against Covid 19. I took the opportunity to observe him by tutoring him, giving him house chores... etc. 

Homework: He would make a lot of careless mistakes. Copying a sentence again would sound like a breeze but he would make some tiny mistakes again and again and again regardless of how many time I made him do correction. Sometimes, he would just rush thru and handed in half-baked worksheets. 😡

House Chores: Can you imagine a room after a house robbery? Yes, that was how his room looked like on daily basis. Cleaned up the night before and the next day would be 'hell' again. I tried giving specific instructions like pick up this and that and then that... he would only pick up one and would be on his way to something else. And I reminded him for the second and third, he would do second and be gone again. 😳

Personal Items: He would once in a while sneak the mobile phone upstairs and when he heard us coming, he would hide the mobile phone somewhere. Do you know the story of the raccoon that constantly loses the acorns it hid? He was like that. He would seriously look for the phone all over and clearly seemed to have forgotten the fact that he took the phone and hid it. 

I was so puzzled... how could he forget something so recent and seemed to be purposefully done. 

In July, the kids could return to school... finally. In just days after that... the class teacher called: 

"Mrs Little Jen, your son lost a lot of his text books, his workbooks, and could not even turn in his homework on time. He is already behind in his studies, and he will not be able to catch up if he keeps on doing this. I prefer to motivate him rather than giving him a taste of the cane or punishment in order for him to be better." 

I told the teacher to help observe him. Told her that I observed him myself and I was desperate to know what was going on with him myself. A class teacher with 40+ students in class requiring attention, I guessed it was not possible for her to notice him alone. 

Made an appointment with Dr Cindy, Sunway Medical Center. I was lucky that the appointment that was supposed to be bout 4 months later got brought forward to 19th November 2020. But that was also the day, I received an official diagnosis to confirm my suspicion. Little Jen had been living with mild ADHD.

What do I do as a parent? How can I make his growing up life better? Away from negative perception and people that will simply label him as 'lazy', 'bad attitude', 'no respect', 'stupid', 'messy'.... and these people also labelled us as parents as 'couldn't care less', 'too lenient', 'too loving'. Especially in a society that believes in 'spare the rod, spoil the child', it is not easy at all. 

What do I do? 

Breastfeeding & Travelling to Penang - Day 4

Last night, Day 3 in Penang, I was reluctant to pump at night when I was supposed to. I wanted to pump in the morning so that the milk would be fresher. This morning, Day 4, I am feeling horrible engorgement which costed me a good night of sleep and a lot of youth (*wink*). I pump as usual but not much milk is released from the ducts and I guess I shall have to bear with the engorgement until the end of the day, hopefully, by then, I shall be in the mood to have 'milk let down'. 

To be on the safe side, I bring my pump out along with me for comfort, at least I know that I have my equipments handy whenever I need them. Hopefully, I can manage to stand the pain until end of the day!

Breastfeeding & Travelling to Penang - Day 5

IT IS THE LAST DAY OF MY BUSINESS TRIP! Today is the day that will determine whether all my efforts for the past few days will go wasted or not. 

In the morning, I wrapped the chilled milk in newspapers and then kept them in the polystyrene chiller box together with the well-frozen ice packs. I had 3 small ones and I always managed to keep the milk chilled for at least 5 hours when I went out for daily business visits. Usually the milk and ice packs were kept in the cooler bag. For this time, since the milk would have to be kept chilled for about 12 hours out of the fridge, I kept them in a polystyrene chiller box.

The weather seemed to know what I was up to and all day the weather was not hot at all. It rained heavily in the morning and then the sky remained cloudy until about 4pm when the sun showed her sunny rays. The chiller box was kept in the front passenger seat with the air conditioner blowing directly at it. I was not sure if that would help lengthen the life of the ice packs that were keeping the previous milk chilled, but somehow, it would be better than not keeping the external environment cool.

Finally, I reached home after visiting 3 customers and a long 5 hours drive. Guess what? My chilled milk were still chilled and the ice packs were only about 80% molten! I managed to bring the milk back for my Little Jen! (*smile widely*)

My First C-Sect Experience @ Pantai Cheras

Alright, I delivered via C-Sect under with a really heavy heart. It was really unexpected when the Gynae asked me if I would like to opt for C-Sect since tomorrow would be my due date and baby was more than ready to greet the world. If I did not go for C-Sect, I would have to go back to the hospital for an hour of monitoring every 2-3 days interval. I would have to lie down with all the weird sticky antennas sticked on my tummy. Those things sent some signals to the monitoring equipment everytime the baby moved, when there were contractions and of course, the baby heart beat as well. 

I eventually considered C-Sect as my own mother, my mother in-law both told me that it was normal to have C-Sect nowadays despite the fact that both of them delivered naturally. Well, understood that both were really looking forward to meeting their grandson in person especially since the pregnancy dragged till the very day before the expected due date.

Eventually, I started searching for dates and what the chinese calendar said about delivering on 07 July 2011 and the best time and etc.. Set and I called the Gynae, made the appointment so simply like making an appointment to see the Dentist. Had a good Kim Gary dinenr with Hubby. IT FELT LIKE TOMORROW MIGHT BE THE END FOR ME.. since I would be lying on the operating table and cut apart to make way for my Little Jen.

The next morning, I told Hubby what I would want if anything happened to me. He looked nervous too.

I told the Nurses that I wanted my Hubby to be with me during the operation. They wheeled me to the 'waiting room' and gave me some shots. Then, they wheeled me into the operation theatre, made me sit up, hugged a pillow, poked a needle through my back and that was it. I started to feel numb from my waist downwards. They made me lie down again and draped a cloth in front of me, cutting my view from my legs.

They pulled both my hands to so that both were 90 degrees from my body and strapped on more equipments i.e. to monitor my blood pressure and heart beat. Then, I could feel something done down below, should be the urine tubes.

Finally, my Gynae came in and then he started to ask me if I could feel anything down below. I was half awake and asked for Hubby. Someone came in and touched my forehead. He was draped in green like the rest of the nurses and doctors. I thought he was my Anesthetist. Realising that his eyebrows were too bushy and too familiar, I looked again, and there, he was my Hubby.

The Gynae started asking -  Can you feel anything? No pain? No pain.. No pain okay..

The next thing, He asked Hubby to stand up and looked over the draped cloth. The water was slightly yellowish and the Gynae told him that Little Jen had passed motion in the womb. Ops, I heard that and I got worried. I waited to hear my Little Jen crying and his first cry was heard soon after.

A while later, I could see his chubby thighs as the Nurse carried him to the little cubicle. Warm tears flowed down my cheeks and I tried my best to control my feelings but it was just too indescribable. Hubby wiped my tears gently and whispered into my ears, "Now that I see Little Jen, it feels so weird, all of a sudden, we have a son."

After that precious moment, everything became blur and I was so drowsy, I could only hear the Doctor and Nurses talking but I just could not peel my eyes open. Looking forward to meet Little Jen in the recovery ward later.. (*smile*).