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I think I need an oversized wall clock. In fact, I think I need an oversized calander, organiser and a computer with large fonts amongst other things. Yes, that is life after 40. My eyesight is getting worse.

I thought that it would only hard be seeing things from near but the strange thing is I also have trouble seeing things from afar. I can’t seem to read my wall clock. I can’t see the TV and the computer is sometimes blur to me.

The worse part is when I eat. My food gets blurred! It is blur from afar but the nearer it gets to my mouth, the more blur my food becomes. It is a very strange sensation indeed. With so many things going on with my family at the moment, my eyesight is the last thing on my mind right now but I will have to get it checked soon.

At the moment I am wearing my regular glasses on a chain (like an old lady) because I keep on having to take it on and off as my eyesight gets blurred and cleared alternatingly when I look far and near. I definitely need bifocals now than maybe I won’t need that oversized wall clock after all.

The boy is home now. He is much better. Only thing left of his symptoms is dry lips and some vomitting. Apparently he had Epstein Barr Virus. Imagine that. A virus. And they pumped him with antibiotics for 7 days at the hospital and gave us more to give orally. We gave for 3 days but were told to stop because he had diarhea.

All is not clear yet though. We still have to bring him to hospital for another blood test. He has had 4 blood tests so far. All that pricking. He hates needles now. His ESR level is still high. Erythrocyte Sedimentation Rate or ESR is often used to measure how much inflamation is in the body due to infection, cancerous deceases or autoimmune deceases. Sounds scary to me. I hope that all will be fine.

This month he has been to school for a total of …. 1 day. Thank goodness he is only in Std 1. Phew!

As for the girl, the day before yesterday, she came home with high fever. I hope that she has not come down with what he had. He had recurring fever for 10 days.

She was given 3 days MC. For her that means, 6 days of sick leave this month. She is in std 3. No phew to that.

The night before last, she vomitted right after taking her anti seizure medicine. What do we do? When she has a fever, it lowers the seizure treshold so I have to watch her more. She vomitted out the medicine. What do we do? Eventually, we gave her another dose of the medicine. The boy vomitted right after her. Projectile vomit. 3 times with vomit coming out of the nose too. One kid vomitting is tiring. Two kids vomitting is mentally and physically tiring.

They are both home now. They had a fight this morning. I hope that means that they are better. I can’t handle another 10 days of recurring fever and I am worried about the boys upcoming blood test.

Before Chinese New Year, being typical Chinese, we tried to get everything in the house fixed. We fixed the leaking ceiling in the front room, the faulty aircond in the bedroom and the ceiling light near our front door.

On the first day of Chinese New Year, we had two electrical trips,  causing brief blackness and the aircon broke down again so we had no aircon for several days since no one was working on Chinese New Year.

After Chinese New Year we fixed the aircon again but then the ceiling light near our front door broke down again, and my cooker hood light went off, and the ceiling light above my dressing table went dark. This was right about the time after my autogate conked out.

So we fixed the autogate. Had to change the entire circuit board.  Then we fixed the ceiling light near our front door, we fixed the cooker hood light, we fixed the dressing table light but then the autogate stopped working again.

So we fixed the autogate yet again but now the ceiling is leaking again.

It would seem as though the house is in the dark tunnel along with the occupants.

This year my girl is on a higher floor. Her books have increased in numbers. There is about half a dozen books for each subject. So we are facing a school bag dilemma.

In the first two years, it was easy. We got her a trolley bag. Since she was on the ground floor that was not a problem. She is still using the same school bag. The bag has removable trolleys so we can switch between trolley and backpack.

My girl said that she would try both trolley as well as backpack to see which was easier to handle.

On the first day, she tried trolley. That was not a problem because there were no books. She came home with her timetable that day. When she was packing her bags for the next day, I took out several workbooks.

As I mentioned, each subject has about 5 or 6 books, 1 textbook, 1 activity book and several workbooks. Oh, and I forgot, exercise books. Each subject has several exercise books being used at the same time too. Since it was only the 2nd day or so I thought, I took out all the workbooks and asked her to bring only the textbook and activity book. In the end, she had extra homework because she could not do some work in school because she did not have the books with them. “Mummy, I have extra homework now because you asked me not to bring the books. Luckily teacher didn’t scold me.”

She dragged her trolley bag up and down the stairs on the 2nd day.

On the 3rd day, having learned a lesson from the 2nd day, we decided to bring all the books for all the subjects required. That made the bag very very heavy. “Mummy, my bag feels like the middle of school, not the start of school” . It didn’t look possible to drag the trolley bag up and down the stairs with such weight.

We tried it at home. We tried carrying it by the handle. It was too heavy. I think the strap is going to give way soon as it looks thin and frayed by now. So we tried carrying it by the trolley handle. It was too heavy. We tried dragging it. It was too heavy. We tried carrying it on our backs. It was too heavy. Even for an adult. At one point the girl said “I found the answer. This is so light. She carried it in front of her by hugging the bag close to her body.”  She was right. It felt the lightest that way but it would mean her bending and lifting that weight up daily which is a no-no.

Finally we took out the trolleys, split the books into another back and told the girl to carry it as a backpack with another smaller hand carried bag to ease the weight off her back. So on the 3rd day, it was backpack with another smaller hand carried bag.

When we went to pick her up after school, she was walking slowly, rubbing her neck and saying “Mummy, my neck very very pain.”

Yesterday, she had BM class. The BM teacher has told them which books to bring on which day. That eases some of the bag load. So today, the 4th day, it is back to the trolleys and dragging it up and down the stairs. She showed me how she was going to do it last night. “Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.” she went up and down the stairs. She has to do it fast as well. There are many kids going up and down the stairs. There is no way she can walk slowly and carefully, hold on to the handrails and carry the bag up carefully step by step.

The other day when we were at school, we stood at the bottom of the staircase and observed the kids. Some of them did this Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang technique. Others carried the loads on their backs doubled over like some grannny. One mum mentioned that she had seen some kids throw the bag down the stairs before running down. I can’t imagine what will happen if that load hits another kid. Another mum, bought extra books for her child to leave in the school so he can have a set at home and a set in school. In the end, I received her hand me down extras. They look brand new, obviously not used very much. I don’t think that is the answer as it causes confusion for the child who may forget to bring homework back home and forget to bring completed work to school.

My girl does not have a locker in school. She is advised to leave her books behind in her desk. However she is reluctant to do that. “Mummy, if I do that, I may forget to bring the book home if I have homework and I will get scolded.”

My girl is tall but she is thin. Some of the other mothers who have small sized girls, shared with me their worry that the bag will topple their girls over at the stairs.

As at the point of writing, we have not resolved our school bag dilemma but for today, it is Bang, Bang, Bang, Bang.

I have a sensitive nose and sadly, my two kids take after me. As soon as we wake up each day, there would be a chorus of sneezes from all of us. We are easily affected by dust, dust mites, temperature changes, you name it. Sometimes, during flu season, I think we scare the people around us. They think we’re spreading flu germs with our sneezes and sniffles.

We can’t do much about it accept try to make ourselves a little bit more comfortable and reduce it somewhat by using saline solution. It is the same advice we get from several physicians or even specialists that we see. We breathe in the saline solution, gargle with it and wash our noses with it. I even have a netti pot, which I will talk about in another post. It is very important to use sterile saline solutions since we wash our noses with it.

Sometimes we mix our own saline solution. At other times, we get store bought ones. However, the nasal saline solutions are somewhat more expensive then those used for eyes, you know, the saline solution that people use for cleaning out and soaking their contact lenses like the Blairex Saline Solution. So, sometimes we buy those.

Saline solutions has many uses. You can even use it for wound washes. SterileSalineSolution.org has those available for wound washes for cleaning wounds, scrapes and burns. It is useful to have a bottle or two around with kids in the house.