We've been busy

Didn't realise that I have not blogged since Sept 20th. Well, we've been really busy with a couple of things in the last couple of weeks ... we've been sick, then there were 2 weddings and 3 birthdays that we had to attend to.

Here comes the full story...

Stomach Flu
The entire family had our share of stomach flu during the mid of Sept. Hayley started it on 16th Sep, me on 18th Sep and papa on 19th Sep. She vomitted after almost every feed (milk or solids) and had watery stools. Thankfully apart from the vomitting and diarrhea she is still an active little one and is very attentive. We monitored her for 2 days and although her condition improved we still brought her to the doctor before the long Raya weekend (just in case). Doctor prescribed some medication and told us there were no need to change her formula to lactose free or soy based as she seems to be improving. However, we were told to give her milk in small quantity every 1.5 hours to give her tummy sometime to digest and to make sure she wasn't dehydrated.

Her condition got worst the following day and I immediately changed her usual formula to lactose free formula. Everytime we give her the usual formula, her stools would become very watery. I gave the doctor a call and she told us to put her on lactose free milk for 2 weeks at least. We gave her Isomil and Nursoy and she didn't like any of those and refused to take her milk. In the end we had no choice but to give her Similar LF (she took this before at 11 months old as she had mild diarrhea back then) and luckily she was ok with it. This formula was meant for babies below 12 months so we were concerned but the doctor assured us that it was ok. The milk is very expensive too, about RM20 for a small tin which will last for 3-4 days. We were also told to give her plain and simple solids for a few days.

As of today Hayley is still on the lactose free formula. We plan to slowly introduce her back to her usual formula starting from today. Hopefully she will be ok [fingers and toes crossed].

As for papa and me, we vomitted as well and had watery stools too during the first couple of days. Mine lasted 4 days but papa's lasted 8 days. Imagine having 3 sick people in the house and we had to look after each other despite being sick. Thankfully my mom came to the rescue over the weekend. She helped cook lunch and dinner for us. It really made a difference to have healthy home cook meal.

As for the stomach flu, doctor said it was infectious. So I am not sure how Hayley caught it but I am sure she must have passed it on to me and then to the papa. She even passed it on to the little boy at the babysitter's. We felt so sorry for him.

My birthday
My birthday was on 22nd Sep and it was nothing to shout about this year. We didn't go for the usual fancy dinner as Hayley and papa were still having stomach flu and I was just recovering. Instead we went for a quick lunch at Canton Bay, plain simple Chinese food which wouldn't upset our tummy. But still it was a happy occassion as I got to enjoy it with the people I loved the most.

As we've been together for 12 years now, we have stopped surprising each other with birthday presents (and possibly end up buying something that our better half doesn't like). Now we just pay for whatever our better half want. Although we won't get the fun of opening a surprise gift, we both agreed that this would be a more practical solution.

So, what did I pick this year? Well, nothing yet.. hahaha. As we're planning a year end trip to Singapore (in conjunction with my company's year end dinner) which will be Hayley's first trip overseas and also her first time on a plane (tickets booked), I plan to redeem my birthday gift there :-)

Weddings
We attended 2 weddings. A cousin's wedding on 19th Sept (all 3 of us were still down with stomach flu then) and papa's friend's wedding on 26th Sep (papa was still having the flu). Hayley tagged along to my cousin's wedding (which was compulsory as it was a family affair) but we left her at home with my mom for the other.

She was such a handsful at my cousin's wedding that we didn't stay long. She was making a lot of noise with the bowl and spoon, running around and banging into the waitresses, demanding for food etc. Papa's frequent need to use the loo didn't help either. We left the wedding early and it was indeed a tiring day for all of us.

As for papa's friend's wedding, we decided not to bring her so we could enjoy the evening to ourselves. Luckily my mom was free to come over to babysit for the night. And luckily Hayley didn't create a havoc when we both left the house.

Mom said she was a darling and very easy to care for. After feeding her dinner (porridge), she gave Hayley some fruits and played with her or watched TV with her. She didn't fuss a bit and entertained herself with her toys and her favourite TV channels. She even asked for milk close to bedtime. After her last feed, she went to bed in less than 30 mins. When we got home around 11pm, she was already in dreamlad :-).

Papa's birthday
Papa's birthday was 1o days after mine, 2nd Oct. I took leave to celebrate it with him, like I do every year. Since it was a Friday, we decided to leave Hayley at the babysitter's to have some private time for ourselves. We both felt very guilty for doing this but since we have 2 other dinner celebrations on Sat and Sun, we decided not to bring her along on Friday. We went to Tony Romas and papa enjoyed his favourite rib eye steak. Tony Romas was kind enough to give the birthday boy a free dessert, delicious vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate cake. It was nice to enjoy our lunch in such a carefree manner. We walked a bit at the mall after lunch and enjoyed some small chats. It was nice.

Saturday night we celebrated papa's birthday again at a Korean BBQ restuarant in Solaris. This time it was my sister's treat. We even bought a cake for papa. Hayley enjoyed singing the birthday song, blowing out the candles and eating the cream on the cake.

Papa too planned to redeem his birthday gift in Singapore :-)

Grandma's Birthday
We celebrated grandma's birthday on 4th Oct in a Chinese restuarant in Ampang. I could still remember the time when the entire family could easily fill 3 tables and yesterday we had 6 tables! How the family has grown. The oldest there of course would be my grandma who is almost 90 and the youngest is a little baby girl who is not even 2 months old. She was the 4th generation.

My grandma enjoyed herself surrounded by family members and loved ones. The kids (too many to count) enjoyed running around the restuarant and making lots of noise.

We kept Hayley occupied in her seat with food but after about an hour, she demanded to get some floor exercise :-). That was it for us. Lots of running around chasing after a 19 month old from there on. We got home around 11pm (thanks to traffic, even on a Sunday night!).

Glad that all the events were behind us now. Although tiring, they were fun and memorable (except for the stomach flu part) and left me poorer :-).

Photos will follow in the next post. As for today, I took leave to enjoy some me time at home and maybe dropping by at Ikea later :-).