Reflect & Relate ...

JANUARY

2012-01-30T22:09:00.000+08:00

With the new year comes new adventures.

The most obvious trait? That Jonathan has his own mind and wants his own way now. He's no longer the chubby little baby who listens to mommy and daddy. Well....mostly mommy. haha

Most of the time, I enlist the help of H whenever he's at home. And H's voice does wonders. Maybe it's because I'm always with Jonathan 24/7 (except for the occasional 'outings' that I have for my work, or going to see my mom) that's why he takes such a long time to respond to my request.

The other thing that has happened recently? He's quite reluctant to have me change his diaper, whether he needs cleaning or not. He will turn his body whenever I need to clean him. Most of the time I end up raising my voice when he twists his body just so that I don't have to clean him. I think he's beginning to be very aware of his surroundings. No problem for daddy here though. But I cannot be relying on daddy all the time. So whenever I need to change him now, I always have to tell him that it's alright for mommy to do it. then he will relax his leg muscles a little so that I can finish the 'job'.

I still treat him like a little kid. The lovable boy with the sparkling eyes and great smile. He loves my attention but I always have to remind myself that he is no longer a baby. I told H once that we shouldn't make him do small kids stuff like "Jonathan, how do you gongxi gonxi." haha. Yup....we used to do this when he was 5/6 years old. A gesture he does so well :))

He is vocally saying "no" rather clearly and sometimes voluntarily when we asks him. So I'm hopeful that his speech will return someday. He says "la" quite frequently too. To me, that means his tongue is moving and loosening up. That's my instincts and I want to believe that I'm right.

Going out is good now. He doesn't retch when he returns home. But sometimes in the cab, he does get a little nervy and tries to move his body in certain ways during the journey to compensate his nervousness. This makes it tiring for me when he sits on my lap. But with H, he sits perfectly fine!

I haven't thought of enrolling him for PT yet. But I should do it in due course. But I do not have any intentions of bringing back to school.

Two weeks ago, we received notice from the Immigrations Department that Jonathan is due to make his identity card. Another reminder that he's growing up :)

I have requested for home visit for the Immigration Officer to come to my home to process the IC. I just have to pay for the transportation fare that the Officer will incur when he/she comes. It's probably the same amount as when we go to the Immigration Department, except that we don't have to wait in a queue.

Jonathan's birthday is coming. I don't know what we will do. Besides celebrating with this grandmother, whose birthday is a day before his, we will probably buy him a cake and have it at home, just the 3 of us.

I'm grateful to the Lord that the retching/vomitting thing is over and now. He caught the flu on the 2nd day of Chinese New Year but recovered fairly quickly. I'm believing for more blessings and more good things happening this year.

Thanks for dropping by. Wishing all good health and loads of blessings this new year!

ANG POW 2012 (RED PACKETS FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR)

2012-01-14T02:12:00.002+08:00

As usual, every year I will whip up my tools and papers and start making ang pows (red packets) for Chinese New Year. I've been doing them for a few years now and CLICK HERE to see some of my past ang pow creations.

This year, this is what I did. I'm sure many people have done this before.

I was surprised I finished making them relatively fast. Maybe it's because I had a great cutting tool by Martha Stewart - The Circle Cutter. I got mine from Scrap-n-Crop.com. Click HERE to see how this tool works.

So, using the above tool, I proceeded to cut 3" circles. Rememeber: Only square circles, not ovals. You need 4 circles for each ang pow. To create a nice contrast, it's better to choose 2 pattern paper circles and 2 plain colored ones.

Then fold the circles into halves.

Using a cutting mat ruler as a guide, place them at 90 degrees. Add a little glue (enough to hold the 2 pieces together) on the flap where the pattern paper is positioned. Once you are certain that they are 90 degrees, you can press down till the glue sticks.

I've pasted them by alternating the overlapping.

This is how it looks once they are pasted together. That's the inside of the ang pow.

This is the back.

See how you should fold the flaps.

When it's close, you can mark the area with a ball point pen so it's easier to punch a hole without having to punch the other papers. This is optional. If you don't want to use ribbons like I did, you can paste a sticker to "seal" the flaps so they will stay closed.

Hope these instructions are clear and you can start making your own gift envelopes.

SKY PARK @ MARINA BAY SANDS 天空花园

2012-01-14T01:52:00.001+08:00

We went back to Marina Bay Sands again on the first day that school reopened (2 Jan 12).

I was a good decision. Less crowded and we didn't have to jostle with many people, unlike the first time we were there in December.

Tickets for adults were $20 each and child at $14. The staff asked me how many tickets I needed. I told him 2 adults and pointed to Jonathan and he said "child". Well, Jonathan does look a little like a small boy :)

Here are some photos. Sky Park or 天空花园 is on 56th floor. Here we are at the lift lobby:

Admission ticket. Comes with a free 15 minute tour to see the infinity pool but we didn't go for it because it would only start in the afternoon.

Sky Park on 56th, restaurants on 57th.

The scenery that greets you once you step out of the lift lobby.

It was very breezy.

That white open palm below is the Arts & Science Museum. See the little bllack dots in the shadow? They are workers painting the roof.

The green rectangle is the floating platform, The colorful part are actually spectator seats.

Jonathan loves highrise buildings. He was soaking them in :)

He looked down and I took this picture. Those cars on the expressway look like mini car toys.

That's the new Gardens By The Bay (click here for more info), scheduled to open in June 2012. It's a giant indoor garden, spanning a total of 101 hectares.

Finally...a photo with his daddy :) my 2 greatest love :))

We didn't stay up there long. About 15 minutes or so. We bought Jonathan a Marina Bay Sands tshirt as a souvenir. We had lunch at the foodcourt at Shoppes at Marian Bay Sands and after a short detour somewhere, we went home.

We may go back to explore other parts of Marina Bay the next time.

Thank you Lord for giving us such a perfect weather again :)

REFLECTIONS

2012-01-01T03:04:00.004+08:00

2011 has gone. Today is 2012. Happy New Year to everyone :)

There were many challenges with Jonathan's health. The whole of 2011 was filled with anxiety. Towards the end of last year, I began to see the importance of positive living. Thinking right and speaking right. But most of all to come to realise the finish the work of Christ. The beatings that HE bore, the death on the cross...were all for our sake.

I began to speak blessing over Jonathan and saw the change in him. His health improved and the retching sessions has stopped.

What a joy to end the year with us bringing him out to town and coming home without him falling sick. It was a really great relief but I believe all these happened because we believed what GOD could do for him and that I had to constantly rely on HIS strength and grace and to speak GOD's word over Jonathan's life.

Lord, thank you that 2012 will be greater than before!!

MARINA BAY SANDS 30 DECEMBER 2011

2011-12-31T03:00:00.000+08:00

On Friday, we brought Jonathan to town again when he said it was alright to go out.

We took a cab to Marina Square, had breakfast and decided to walk to the Helix Bridge since we've never been there. Before we set off, I thanked the Lord for good and perfect weather with little sunshine and God answered again :)

Jonathan absolutely loved the Helix Bridge because he could enjoy the sights of highrise buildings. Something that he loves very much. We walked through the Shoppes @ Marina Bay Sands, passed by the Casino (with a very smokey entrance). We went to Marina Bay Sands Hotel and wanted to go up to the Sky Park but it was closed for a private function (and we found out that it was closed for some parachute jumping through the New Paper). We ended our outing at the Esplanade having tea and when we got home, Jonathan was just absolutely a-okay!

Thank you Lord for your constant healing over Jonathan's body. I believe that we will see more good things in 2012. Today is just the first day but I'm already very excited and planning for our next day trip and perhaps...in the new future...another hotel stay.

Happy New Year to all. And I leave you with some photos that were taken on Friday, 30th:

this was the first picture I took after entering the Helix Bridge. I just love the city skyline.

This is the stretch of the Helix Bridge. It looks like this now but at night, it's filled with lights. We have yet to go there at night.

You can see the smile on Jonathan's face because he got to see all the high rise buildings.

this was taken when we stood in front of the Art & Science Museum. They were showcasing the Titanic Exhibitions but we didn't want to go.

That's the "hand" looking Art & Science Museum.

On the way to the sky Park, we had to walk through the Marina Bay Sands Hotel. Looking up from the ground, they are hotel rooms.

Before we reach the Hotel, we had to pass the Casino. It was really smokey.

That's the entrance. I saw a young man holding a stack of $50 notes about 2cm thick entering the casino!

At the Shoppes @ Marina Bay Sands, there was a mini "Venice" where shoppers can rent a boat and "sail" through this short canal.

See the people queuing on the left. The boats were paddled by staff.

Before we left Marina Bay Sands via the Helix Bridge, I just had to take this picture.

And finally... a close up of the Singapore Flyer. Another attraction we haven't been on yet. As you can see, the Lord gave us perfect weather. Breezy and no sunshine :)

Thanks for dropping by :)

RASH DISAPPEARING

2011-12-27T16:33:00.000+08:00

Oh...forgot to update that after 2 months, the rash on Jonathan's body is finally going off. the spots that were red turned brown and the skin peeled. I'm still applying cream on those little dots but I'm just happy that they are finally gone and whatever virus that caused it has finally disappeared.

Thank you Lord! And thanks to those who prayed for his recovery :)

ORCHARD ADVENTURE - 21st to 22nd DECEMBER 2011

2011-12-27T16:23:00.000+08:00

Jonathan received an early Christmas gift from his Aunty. A one-night stay at Mandarin Orchard. It was a brand new experience for him. My sister wanted him to catch the sights and sounds and feel the Christmas spirit down town. Something that we might not do this year because of the erratic weather.

A few days before we were there, it was raining everyday. But on that day we were at Orchard Road, the weather was superb! Praise the Lord for answering our prayers!

We checked-in in the afternoon. The hotel was so crowded with guests and mostly were Indonesians or Chinese nationals.

Our room for the night. A king size bed. He was surprise that we were in this room as I didn't want to tell him earlier (just in case he decides not to go...a decision which I regretted later).

Took a stroll in the afternoon after having lunch. there were many painted elephants along the stretch from Lucky Plaza to Tangs. Later we found out it was a project to encourage people to help save the elephants.
I particularly liked this elephant (below).

We went to 313 Somerset and managed to catch one of the first carol performances. Jonathan liked these. Sat there listening to 3 songs before we left for another place.

We went back to the room to feed Jonathan and rested for a while. After dinner, we ventured out again.
It was so crowded along the Orchard Road. But I still could take this picture (below). There were strips of LED lights embedded into the ground. I thought they were rather unique.

This is the Ferraro Roche Christmas tree in front of The Heeren.

Jonathan didn't particularly liked the crowd. So we went into Orchard Central and had dinner at Garuda, an Indonesian restaurant on the 7th floor. We decided to sit outside at the balcony and it was breezy. Jonathan liked Orchard Central because of the bubble lifts. haha

After dinner, we decided to walk back towards ION. See the crowd below?

The lights along the road were beautiful :)

This picture was taken in front of ION Orchard.

While we were catching another carol group performing, we also chanced upon the mini Christmas Float Parade. The timing was just great! Here's a short clip of the whole video of the parade:

Since Jonathan didn't nap that afternoon, we would think he would be very tired. We also gave him his nose medication because the air was dry in the room and he was snorting somewhat. He couldn't sleep until 2am and only managed 20 minutes of sleep and didn't want to from then on. Despite our efforts to make him rest and turning off the air-condition (and the room was still cold), he couldn't go back to sleep.

We finally felt that it was time to let him rest and checked out early. We felt bad that we had to "abandon" the stay. We deliberated for a long time before making the decision. When we reached home, he came down with low grade fever.

It was a great night for us and a good "sleeping experience" for Jonathan. I guess he was too aware of the new surrounding. But I think it was the nose that gave him more discomfort.

I want to thank my sister, Emmy for her generous gift and God bless her for being so kind to us.

I asked Jonathan if he wanted to try staying at another hotel again, he said "yes". The next time we do it, I'll make sure I tell him first And also to look for a hotel that has windows that can be opened LOL!

DESIGNS FOR SALE

2011-12-13T21:55:00.000+08:00

Hello, my blog visitors,

I have these 2 designs for sale. They will be printed on any color shirt you want (subject to availability). The design on each shirt is 27cm wide. Will be printed centralized on the shirt.

Price for each shirt (that includes GST, shirt, printing service) : $16. You can add a small caption for an extra $1.

For Singapore only. If you are interested, please leave a message on the "Comments" box.

Thanks!

A TSHIRT FOR A GOOD FRIEND

2011-12-13T20:48:00.000+08:00

I wanted to give my good friend a present. And we were already going to meet for dinner and I had 3 days to think of something, prepare the transfers and get it printed.

I came up with this:

It's a little dark. Had to use my mobile phone to take this picture but it turned out really nice.

Why this design?

My friend's name is Mabel. I wanted to show that the different font of "M"s reflect the different personalities/moods/etc. But despite who we are, Jesus still loves us as we are.

I liked it and hope my friend does :)

Will show you another 2 designs later. Thanks for visiting :)

I'M BACK :)

2011-12-12T01:27:00.000+08:00

My last post was almost a month ago. I've been busy...and...lazy.

Thanks to May of Love and A Leap of Faith and Busy Mommy for dropping by. We have brought Jonathan back for a review. The rash is somehow clearing but a little slowly. The "virus" is clearing from his body and there's no need to got to the skin doctor.

There are some new ones here and there but most of those on his lower body are almost disappearing. When they dry there a small scabs that come off.

He says it's not itchy, which is either a way to avoid going to the hospital or just to avoid more medication. But for now, we will just continue applying cream on those spots.

Jonathan has been very vocal lately and I'm very happy that sometimes he tries to follow what I say. Some words seems audible but of course when you ask him to repeat it, he just gives you an "ah".

Note: Sorry...when I converted the clip from quick time to wmv, I couldn't rotate the image.

He's a growing teenager with his own demands. So sometimes when demands are not met quickly, he will resort to his antics like the above video. He will start tugging at his BARD button and then his tummy will be exposed. So most of the time I'll have to ask him to pull down his shirt. He's actually getting really good at this skill. Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or get angry.

By the way, since he went to school, we have taught him to reply "yes" and "no" using his hands. And because we wanted him to use his left hand more, we decided to put "Yes" band on his left wrist. So now, his "yes" is answered by raising his left arm. But somehow, for his "no", he decided to hold his hands together..LOL. It's supposed to be his right hand. This method has been really effective communication for us. But most of our family members or friends still use the sign language of "yes" and "no" to talk to him, which is fine too!

But I'm just thankful that he's been healthy. In 11 days time,we will be staying a night at a hotel in Orchard. My sister was kind to book us a room for Jonathan to capture the Christmas spirit there. Please pray along with us that the weather for the overnight stay on 21st will be excellent so that we can enjoy the sights of lights and sounds of Christmas carols.

Thanks so much! God bless!

IT'S BEEN ALMOST A MONTH

2011-11-14T01:54:00.000+08:00

And the rashes on Jonathan's body are still there, some appearing on his armpits and a few dots on the face.

We brought him back to the GP, this time around, seeing another doctor on duty and was prescribed another type of anti-allergy medication and cream. Doc said that the rashes should clear within 7-8 days with this medication of Dhasalon but if it doesn't then he has to go for a jab.

I've seen improvements. Most of them have turned a little brownish. I do hope they clear quickly.

I've decided to google the different types of rashes but nothing seems to fit what Jonathan has. Of course that's good. But it would be good to know what it is. But so long as the rashes clear, I'm ok without knowing what it was in the first place that caused this.

Thank you Lord for healing Jonathan.

I've also been busy. One order after another, although they are small. I've decided not to take any orders for Christmas. Don't want to be swamped. But other than this, I still have a pile of tshirts to clear and keep in the cupboards because they are just lying in the working room and collecting dust!

Wanted to print bags tonight but decided against it because I'm just too sleepy.

Better go now. Thanks for dropping by!

I DON'T UNDERSTAND

2011-10-28T01:14:00.000+08:00

That's what Jonathan said to his daddy today.

He loves it when H carries him to sit on his lap and watch TV together.

On times, like today, when H has to go to work, it will be really hard to put Jonathan on the mat because he still wants to sit on his daddy's lap and straightens his body so that it will be really difficult to lift him up from H's lap.

So...H this conversation started:

H: "Daddy has to go to work. I need to put you on the mat. Do you understand what daddy is saying?"
Jon: "No."
Me: "But daddy really has to go to work already. Do you understand that he needs to put you on the mat and go to work?"
Jon: "No"
Me: "So if I say you can still sit on daddy's lap and he stays home, you understand what I'm saying?"
Jon: "Yes".

ok...we lose. haha

But we still had to put him on the mat cos H was running late already.

VIRAL RASH...

2011-10-16T15:17:00.000+08:00

That's what the doctor said this morning when we brought Jonathan to the clinic.

There's a lot of spots on his body.

It started around his lower tummy and I thought they were diaper rashes. But from small red dots, they became dark colored. Then it slowly spread up, to his upper body and some at his armpits. Nothing on the back. Because he kept saying it wasn't itchy, I left it, thinking they will disappear soon. So it's been at least 4 days.

I kept racking my brains as to what was causing it. Even decided to change pillows and H thought it could be the bed mattress. But we just got the mattress!

Cannot be bed bugs because they attack the exposed areas like the arms, face, legs and a bit of the body. But in this case, it's the total opposite. Can't be chicken pox either because there are no watery spots.

Doc said he's a little phlegmy in the lungs. Something we didn't even noticed because he was all well and active, except for last week when he had a little stuffy nose.

Jonathan kept saying that it was not itchy. But as I recall, he's been on his tummy quite a lot for the last few days. Perhaps just to rub his tummy against the mat to reduce the itchiness. Well...telling us it's not didn't stop us from bringing him to the clinic, something that he wanted to avoid. But after the visit, he just had to tell daddy the truth.

Hope this clears soon.

DIET REVIEW PLUS A FEW QUESTIONS ANSWERED

2011-10-05T23:00:00.049+08:00

We were at KK this morning for Jonathan's yearly diet review.

Weight: Estimated 23kg (same as last year)
Height: Estimated 129cm (up by 3cm from last year)

The good news, he's growing and still having enough intake of more than 2 litres of fluid a day. Just need to boost his weight by adding milk powder.

Last year, it was recommended that he takes 6.5 or 7 scoops of powdered Isomil Soy Milk. (My journal post HERE). But each time I do that, he has watery stools. So that option was out.

In today's meeting, dietitian PKY recommended that since we were trying to increase the 0.5 or 1 scoop of milk powder in the feed, why not we just put in a 180ml of water with 3 scoops as an extra feed.

I've done this before whenever Jonathan wakes up in the middle of the night asking for milk. So this method of increasing his milk powder will be either done during the "in-between" water feed (4 water feeds, one to be taken out with 3 scoops of milk) or as an extra milk feed, from 5 feeds a day to 6. If I choose the latter, that means this milk feed will be done around 1-2am. This is fine by me since I sleep late anyway. Moreover, using this method doesn't cause him to have diarrhoea.

Dietitian is happy that I've started using rice water into Jonathan's feed (as I've mentioned HERE.) She said that rice water actually helps the milk to settle down because of the carbohydrate.

I had questions for her today, questions that came about while chatting with friends about diets for our children.

Is 300ml per feed of milk too much for Jonathan? Including water for flushing, it comes up to about 330ml. This amount is more than a cup.
Answer: So long as his kidneys are ok and he doesn't retch or reflux, this is not a real problem. A good way to know is how many diapers he changes a day. For Jonathan, it's about 6 pieces. So that's quite normal.
A friend suggested that I cook vegetables inside the rice water to give Jonathan more nutrients.
Answer: Some minerals or vitamins in vegetables like magnesium do not leak out into the water when you boil them. So in order to get these minerals/vitamins, you actually have to eat the vegetable itself. So it's only half truth that when you cook vegetables, you get ALL the nutrients from them. She recommended a good vitamin from Centrum. It's for adults but for Jonathan, I have to break the table into 2, dissolve half of it in water and give it to him daily.
I'm not prepared to give him daily doses. So if I decide to try, it will just probably be once a week first.
Brown rice water is good. Is it true?
Answer: Yes, it can be better than normal rice water as it gives more Vitamin B.
(Note: I think I'll just mix a little of brown rice with the normal white rice).
Health store actually recommends pro biotic powder. They say it helps boost immune system.
Answer: While pro biotics can be good for the body, it actually helps only when a person has tummy problems like diarrhoea. It is good bacteria for the intestine but not something that will boost up the immune system.

We chatted about other things that I currently can't remember. On the whole, it was good to catch up on the diet plan. Next appointment is one year later. And hopefully by then, Jonathan would have gained a little more weight.

Thanks for dropping by and sharing my thoughts :) God bless!

BARIUM FLUOROSCOPY TEST

2011-09-05T14:51:00.001+08:00

Jonathan did the barium test today.

The doctor injected about 18mls of barium through his PEG. Then we had to move him around. First, take some photos while he lies on his back. Then turn to the left, take photo, then turn to the right, take photo.

Took about half hour. It was fast. final results: No abnormality found and the surgery site at the esophagus is still intact.

Thank you Jesus for good results. Now we rule this out and there's no acid reflux.

And thank you to those who visited my journal and saying a prayer for Jonathan. Deeply appreciated.

After the whole procedure, we were surprised that he didn't want to go back. So we took him to Marina Square for a walk. It's nice to go in the morning. No crowd. We had breakfast, walked to Suntec and Carrefour, had lunch at the Sudanese restaurant (the lady boss gave us complimentary dessert because she said it's not easy to look after a special child, and she even offered to take him for a walk because he was fussing and wanting to leave the restaurant).

It was a good morning out. We got home just in time for his next feed and thankfully, he's ok.

Thank you Lord for everything that went smoothly this moring.

GASTRO APPOINTMENT

2011-08-25T23:42:00.057+08:00

Jonathan finally had his gastro appointment at KK yesterday (24 August 2011).

Dr Chu is a very nice lady. Jovial and easy to relate to.

She gathered all the information from us with regard to Jonathan's history -

Was he already retching during early years
when did we get the surgery done for the PEG (feeding button)
why did we switch from Karihome goat milk to soy milk

and some other questions.

From our discussion, she told us there are probably 3 possibilities of Jonathan's vomiting episodes:

The fundoplication* that was done during the surgery 4 years ago, for the feeding button, has loosened.
*SEE FUNDOPLICATION
The brain sending signals to his body. She gave an example of a child with fits. When the brain sends signals to the body, then fits starts. In Jonathan's case, it's retching.
Food allergy. There might be a small component of food that he's taking that he cannot handle. One way is to take a blood test but may come negative for food allergies. The other is to switch to another type of milk formula that has more nutrients for a week to see reaction and then switch back to soy to see if there's another reaction.

Well, we have decided to take the barium test (managed to get a slot on 5 September) and to see what's the outcome. Jonathan has to fast for 6 hours before taking this test.

And in the meantime, since the next appointment is only 2 months later, she's prescribed 2 types of medication just in case Jonathan needs them. Ranitidine Syrup and Domperidone. Both to prevent acid reflux. Expensive medication. But so long as he has no gagging or acid reflux, there's no need to take them.

The milk formula she recommended is called Peptamen Junior by Nestle (because of his current weight). I was shocked by the price : SGD45 for a 400g can of milk powder.

Jonathan's consumption of milk is at least 20 cans of 400g milk powder a month. It will cost at least SGD900 per month if we decide to switch to this milk powder.

I posted a journal about his feeding issues HERE 2 months ago. Till today, adding milk to rice water has stopped him from gagging and his got full tummy feed.

So I hope that come 5th September, the results will be good. There's no reflux and no surgery needed to fix this problem.

Thank you Lord that everything will turn out good and there's going to be a solution to this.

Thanks for dropping by :)

SLEEP PATTERNS

2011-08-12T19:07:00.000+08:00

change with season? days? I don't know.

But Jonathan's sleeping pattern has been changing almost everyday.

On good nights, he sleeps at 12midnight, wakes up once and goes back to sleep on his own.

Sometimes, he wakes, looks for me and I have to stay with him in his room till he goes back to sleep again.

On not so good nights, like last night, he slept at 12 midnight. Woke up at 3am, didn't go back to sleep till 6am and woke at 10am this morning.

When he fell asleep, I went to work immediately because he was not well 2 days ago so my work has been held back. Just when I wanted to retire to bed, he woke up. And when I was trying to make him go back to sleep, his daddy came back from his work at the studio (at 3.30am).

So that's it. Jonathan heard the door click and his eyes just opened even wider. Daddy kissed him and tried to coax him back to sleep but in vain.

I gave him a feed at 4.30am, hoping that he will go back to sleep. But no. even when I had to give him medication for his stuffy nose.

I gave up. Held on to him to soothe his excitement and turned on my laptop to keep myself awake.

By 6.30am, he was fast asleep and I put him back on the bed. I slept around 7am.

Today, I'm a little dazed from the lack of sleep. Being awake the whole night is tiring. But thankfully he woke up at 10am so I had at least 3 hours of sleep and he took a half hour nap today.

I don't know. He's just full of energy even though he had a disturbed rest last night.

Most of all, I'm thankful to the Lord that he's healthy. That's what matters most for me.

JONATHAN CRIED TODAY

2011-08-05T23:00:00.001+08:00

It was a heart-wrenching cry. The type of cry that you will cry along too.

We went for breakfast this morning. Took a walk to the hawker center that passed a government kindergarten. We saw a class was marching to their teacher's command "One, two, three, four ..."

Suddenly, Jonathan started tearing and became upset.

While crossing the road, he was unhappy. Kept pouting his lips and his eyes looking sad.

After crossing the road, we took him to one quiet corner and wiped his face. H was getting upset because he didn't want Jonathan to cry big time and start having secretion. We thought he didn't want to be there but it was not. Finally, we realised that he was upset because of the children.

Anyway, we talked and consoled him and he was ok. Had breakfast and then we came back home.

He continued the day, watching television, listening to music and took his nap.

When he woke up, he started tearing and crying.

Most of the time I will refrain from asking him questions that will make him cry even more.

But today, with my gut feeling, I asked him the following questions:

"Are you still thinking about the children this morning?"
"yes"
"Why do they make you cry? Is it because you want to walk just like them?"
"Yes." and he continued to cry loudly.

I cried with him.

That evening, I was an emotional wreck. It was bad timing that I was expecting a guest but I couldn't cancel it at the last minute.

Jonathan is beginning to show his emotions more lately. Now I know why he's been asking to listen to some healing songs lately and kept asking us to repeat them. I believe he wants a miracle to happen.

H prayed for him before he slept. I prayed that today's incident will not affect him deeply again.

Lord, hear the prayers and cries of Jonathan.

COMPLETED AND COURIERED!

2011-07-30T23:23:00.020+08:00

The birthday booklets ... remaining ones for the year have been completed and couriered to the rightful owner!

Thanks Ms MW for being so patient with me :) You are one of the best customers I have ever had!

So here are the final 4 booklets/card:

I kinda like the effect of Earnest's book cover. Used rikrak ribbons and glued only on one end.

The flower pattern paper has glitter on them. so I added these tiny beads that were actually meant for mobile phone covers. The whole strip of beads already had adhesive backing so all I did was cut each bead out and pasted on the pattern paper.

Close up...can you see the tiny beads? For the maroon backing, it's actually a piece of my tshirt transfers. I used my scallop punch to cut them out.

This card I made for Esther was simple. My good friend, Olive, gave me a set of gltter birthday patter papers and a roll of lace ribbon (with adhesive) that she bought from Korea. I used the lace to line the bottom of the card to make it look like the candles were on a cake. Kind of like this effect. But the only thing was when I got up yesterday morning, I realised the color of the chipboard alphas don't mactch! haha. Well...that's my mistake for working under a dim light at 3am! LOL!

This hanger hearts was done a few months' back and I decided to use it for Mabel.

Because the front is already complexed, I wanted to keep the back simple and plain with just her name.

Trimmed the paper cards to the same size as the circle coaster for her friends to write their messages for her.

The booklets and card were couriered yesterday to MW yesterday and hope she's got them.

We celebrated my mom's 82nd birthday today. My mom was born in Swatow, China. They used the chinese lunar calendar to record their birthdates so today is actually the day she was born. The 30th day of the 6th of the chinese calendar. It's the chinese leap year. Otherwise, there's no 30th day on the 6th month. It's complicating isn't it? haha.

Although she was not very sure what the occasion was, she was alert and quite chatty.

Happy birthday mom! I LOVE YOU veryX100000000000 much! Pictures later :)

I'M SO PROUD OF JONATHAN

2011-07-23T12:43:00.001+08:00

because he went for his dental "maintenance" without fuss :)

He was brave and so cooperative. It puts a smile on my face that my teenage boy is mature and sensible.

I actually took some pictures with my mobile while we were waiting. But I can't seem to get them out of my phone. Anyway, here the chronicles of a day at the dental surgery:

6am Jonathan woke up.
7am Left home for KK Hospital
7.45am, we arrived at KK Hospital Day Surgery. Note: Good to do this during school term because it was not crowded.
8.10am, placed local anesthesia cream on the back of both of his hands for IV.
8.30am, assessed his condition, took his temperature. Initial reading was 37.6 degrees. I think it was nerves that shot his temperature up. Later on the second take, his temperature went down. Then proceeded to change him into the gown, what was left were his diaper and socks. He said he was not cold, even though I tried to cover his bare legs.
8.40am Went up to the Pedae Operating Theatre. Another set of questions and to confirm that he's the correct patient.
8.45am We (just Jon and I while H waited outside) were asked to proceed to the front of the operating theater where the doctors will come out to meet us. First a nurse appeared, asked the same set of questions and provided me with a yellow gown, hair cap and shoe covers. Then Doc Toh came and she explained to me what she planned to do. While talking to her, Jonathan started voicing. He said he wanted to do it quickly and get it over and done with. haha After her, the anesthesiologist came to assess Jonathan. She asked me to open Jonathan's mouth but I could see she was annoyed when I told her he couldn't and even asked Doc Toh to confirm that Jonathan has no locked jaw. She only became ok when I apologised. Must have thot I was playing tricks with her.
9am Another doctor came to assess the local anesthesia on Jonathan's hands. I found out that she was the senior anesthesiologist. She's very friendly, unlike the first lady who was more serious looking.
9.15am We went into the operating theater. Jonathan got nervous when he saw the bed. I carried him onto it, they held on to him and suddenly, he became very still and just looked ahead while they inserted the IV into his right hand. When the doctor injected a white liquid into the IV, he slept straight away and I was asked to leave.
9.30am Went for breakfast with H.
11am Doctor came out and explained to me what happened and what she did. then I was allowed to see Jonathan after they woke him up
11.30am After the senior anesthesiologist confirmed the go ahead, we went down to recover room. Fed Jonathan 50mls of water after waiting for one hour. Half hour later when he didn't vomit, i gave him some milk.
12.30pm When he didn't throw up after the milk feed, we were allowed to go home.

The whole procedure took about 1.5 hours. What was done:

Scaling to clean all the teeth.
Filled a tiny hole that was in one of the molars.
Extracted 2 baby molars that were already shaky and finally put a layer of protection over all his molars and teeth that are unreachable.

On the whole, his teeth are ok and there are 2 more baby canines that is still firmly fixed on his upper jaw so she didn't touch that. His teeth are now as white as snow :)

Next cleanup will probably be another 3-4 years. Doctor Toh told me that because Jonathan's jaw is small, there are another 2 molars that might not have enough space at the back and may grow outwards. And also just in case wisdom teeth grow, then they can do another surgery to remove them. well...I hope no wisdom tooth at all!

The whole dental maintenance was estimated to cost $1000 plus. But they did tell us that there might be additional costs. So we'll wait to see the total bill when they mail it to us. Note for parents: For day surgery, you cannot deduct payments from Medisave.

Jonathan is a good patient. He doesn't fuss. The only time he did was that he wanted to go home straight away haha.

While talking to the anesthesiologist during assessment, I mentioned that Jonathan has motion sickness. So after this dental treatment, they gave him a medication to prevent him from vomitting. That really helped because he came home absolutely fine.

I'm also thankful that when they removed the breathing tubes, he didn't have a lot of phlegm. This usually happened to alot of patients. When he did have some in his throat, he was able to cough it out.

He still looks drowsy. He said the gums are still a little sore and has requested for panadol. But he's happy and the gums are slowly healing.

I'm very happy with Doctor Toh from the National Dental Centre. She's so good with Jonathan and if you have any children who need dental care, get a referral and go see her.

As for me, I was knocked out when we went to bed. I woke up at 4am feeling anxious, like any parent of a child going under GA. I'm still a little shacked. But thankfully, God has seen us through, especially Jonathan and took the pain away from him that he was able to recovery so quickly.

Thank you Lord! I'm grateful :)

If your child is going under GA for the first time for dental treatment, feel free to ask me anything. I would be happy to help you in any way I can.

SAVINGS FOR MOMMIES OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

2011-07-21T03:14:00.000+08:00

This information is for all mommies of children with special needs.

We know the cost of all milk and diapers really takes a toll on our monthly expenses. We are always on a lookout for lower priced items.

I found this website through my niece and it has helped me reduce some $$.

For Jonathan, he currently takes Isomil Advance 3 Eye Plus. At Shop & Save, the price is $39 for a 900g can. In other medical shops, lowest is $36. At Luvbabies, I pay $35 per can and I order at least 8-10 cans per month supply. Sometimes they have promotion at $200 for 6 cans.

Jonathan uses Mamy Poko diaper XXL. Lowest I can find is $13.80 at a medical shop at Pasir Ris. But even though Luvbabies sells them at $14 per 28pc pack, it's still a good deal. For diapers, it's around 5-6 packs a month.

Spend more than $200 and you get free delivery. But you have to order online.

Monthly expenses for Jonathan just for these 2 items is almost $450.

Go to LUVBABIES, create an account for yourself and hope this will help you save.

If anyone out there knows of any place that sells these items at a lower price, do leave a contact in my comment box so that we will know where to find them. I would appreciate no spamming please. Thank you.

1) Propax gauze (lowest price I can get from Pharmex is $0.85 per pack for 7.5cm gauze)
2) Tagederm Transparent Film Dressing (lowest priced is $60 per box of 100 from DNR Wheels)

MAY HAVE TO POSTPONE

2011-07-20T01:44:00.000+08:00

the dental treatment cos Jonathan's caught a cold tonight. He's resting. But the secretion is making him cough and thus deep coughing causes him to retch.

Me...I have forgotten to give him flumucil to lessen the phlegm. Now whatever I give him doesn't sit well in his tummy and a slight turn will cause him to throw up.

Hopefully he will sleep right through tonight.

He's quite sensible now. He knows that whatever he takes will be thrown out, he kept saying 'no' to food, even to porridge water. I'm just happy that he's able to communicate with us. At least we know how he's feeling.

The funny thing about Singapore weather is:
To warm, we turn up the fan speed and open the windows wider.
Early dawn, the temperature drops. We have to lower the fan speed and close the window a little. Sometimes I'm so deep asleep that i forget to wake up to check on him. The little boy will be all curled up. He doesn't like blankets. Will wake up if we cover him with one. The again, it's just too hot to cover him with a blankey!
Lowering the fan speed makes him perspire. Then we're back to square one and it becomes chilly.

And no...he doesn't like to sleep with the air-conditioner on.

Sigh...

Better to postpone the appointment than to go through serious consequences.

Lord...thank you that Jonathan has speedy recovery!

WHAT HAS JONATHAN BEEN UP TO?

2011-07-18T02:40:00.000+08:00

Nothing much. Except that he's begun this tactics just to get my attention and doing things for him QUICKLY!

No amount of "please wait"... "hold on a minute"... will make him wait patiently.

He will either pull his feeding button or roll off out of his floor mattress to where the computer is. Or he will start kicking the box that I put near him where all his gauze, wipes and daily amenities are. Or he will start pulling the diaper bag across his face.

No amount of stern warning will stop him. Until you have done what he wants you to do.

Teenager? Yes.
Naughty? Well...he may be to some who are strict parents. To me, I don't think this is it.

Reason being? It's also partly my fault. Because sometimes when I say "wait a minute", I will make him wait more than a minute. That's actually not a very good example isn't it? haha. He knows mommy's bad habits!

Now...I will explain to him what I'm going so that he knows he has to wait. He's able to wait till I finish whatever I need to finish then he gets his request. But of course, when he's impatient, he will start from square one and I'll be raising my volume LOL.

I cannot wait for the time when he will start saying "mom, please help me play this video or music."

Till that time, I'm enjoying his "NO!" that he so clearly says whenever he doesn't want any particular item/video clip/music.

On another note. I noticed the muscle on his right leg, just behind the knee, tends to be a little tight. He crosses his legs when he sits on his buggy/chair. but he straightens his left leg more. So the crossed leg is bent almost quite frequently, although he does straigthen it from time to time.

Maybe I will get my friend to give him a good massage to loosen up the muscles. Will see how it goes.

:)

DENTAL CLEANING/EXTRACTION BROUGHT FORWARD

2011-07-14T17:00:00.001+08:00

Jonathan's GA dental cleaning and extraction has been brought forward to next Friday 22nd July. They can put him in the first slot because the other children are older. Usually they will put the youngest children first. Even though there are a few who are younger than him, Jonathan being a child with special needs gets the appointment first.

Extraction is for the 2 baby-molars that are still intact but shaky.

If you happened to drop by my blog, do send a prayer to Heavenly Father for Jonathan that he will continue to be in good health.

Thank you very much! God bless!

SHORT CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON

2011-07-11T18:56:00.000+08:00

was very funny as they were sitting together watching video clips on the Youtube.

Usually H will choose the clips.

One wrong click and H will get a loud "NO!" from Jonathan.

In this instance....
Jonathan: "NO!"
H: "Why don't you say yes Jonathan. Your "no" is already so clear. It's time to start saying "yes" then watch this clip."

haha...I enjoy moments like these :)

WOODEN COASTERS

2011-07-03T14:15:00.000+08:00

I enjoy experimenting. This time around, experimenting on customer's order, as well as spoiling a few. heh heh

Customer Ms J order 21 printed wooden coasters.

I have never done layering on wooden coasters before. The very first piece I tried on was this pink flower.
It was simply cutting the flex and printing on the coaster and that's it.

With layering, it's a little more delicate. First the bottom layer (blue cloud and stars) has to go down first. I have to bear in mind that wood also radiate heat. So at 180C degrees plus the wood, I have to make sure the transfer gets pasted down onto the wood. My mistake was not sandpapering the coaster first to make the surface smoother. (Will remember to do this next time).

The 2nd layer, which are the words goes on top. Temperature was still 180 degrees but I have to hold it for only 4 seconds instead of the full 10. this is because if I hold the heatpress too long, the areas surround the alphabets will start to wrinkle. so it's like 1st layer, press 10 seconds, remove backing, press for another second or two. Second layer, press for 6 seconds, remove backing and press for another second.

I can't use this light blue flex. it has a white adhesive back so when I press too long, the white adhesive bleed out. But thankfully, this time around it's less than 0.01cm.

So long as customer is happy.

Tested on hot plate. Holds very well. Another successful project. Thank you Lord!

DENTAL CHECK UP 1 JULY 2011

2011-07-01T23:00:00.032+08:00

Jonathan finally had his dental appointment today after it was postponed many times.

Seems that there are 2 more baby molars that are not out yet. But they look really tender and pink. One of them is shaky.

Dr Toh scheduled him for a major GA clean up / surgery (if necessary, to remove the baby molar...she said better to do it while he's asleep if they don't drop out before the clean up date) / coat a protective layer over all his teeth after scaling to prevent tooth decay / patch any holes (if any).

His first major clean up was done when he was 9/10 years old. So this will be his second clean up.
Scheduled date - 19 August 2011. Although check up is at the national dental centre, day surgery will be done at KK Hospital. Dr didn't want to do anything earlier because she wanted to wait till most of his adult teeth are out and this is a good time now.

I'm trusting the Lord that everything will go on well before and after the GA.

We were late for our appointment by 15 minutes because there was heavy traffic due to an accident at CTE (AYE) although it wasn't en route to national dental centre. But somehow, traffic was quite slow towards the entrance to CTE.

We ended up waiting one and half hours for his appointment. Found out from Dr Toh that from the start at 9am, everybody was late so all the appointments were pushed back. What made our delay was there was a difficult case before us.

So we came home and the retching kinda started towards evening. But thankfully it wasn't serious.

Now...I'm staying in Jonathan's room to monitor his condition. It will probably be another long night. He's fidgeting and waking up every half hour but still doesn't want anything to drink. I guess he knows his own body.

Gotta go. He's awake again.

Thanks for dropping by. I do appreciate a prayer for him. God bless all!

FATHER'S DAY GIFT FROM JONATHAN

2011-06-19T13:28:00.000+08:00

Jonathan wanted to give daddy a gift. Since we couldn't go out to buy one, I asked if he wanted to give daddy an ang pow (red money packet). In this case, the envelope is gold. hee hee.

I held his hand to write on the envelope.

I asked him how much he wanted to give.

Me: Do you want to give daddy $10?
Jon: Yes
Me: Is it too little?
Jon: Yes
Me: $20?
Jon: Yes
Me: Is it too little?
Jon: Yes
Me: How about $30?
Jon: Yes
Me: Is it too little?

This went on until we reached $50. He said $50 is ok. Not too little. When i asked if he wanted to give $60, he said no.

My next question:

Me: Do you want to use your money or mommy's money?Jon: Mommy's money

Harith said he's a smart boy ;))))) haahaha

Both of us said a prayer for daddy.

Thanks Harith for being here with me all these years to watch over Jonathan. Happy Blessed Father's Day Dear :)))

BTW, I got a rose from Jonathan on Mother's day. I didn't blog about it then cos I was busy. But it was really a beautiful gesture. I didn't even know he had a discussion with his daddy about buying a carnation.

This morning at 2am, I finished up a couple t-shirt for my niece-in-law's sister who is getting married this year. At the same time, printed 4 rompers for my grandniece. Simple words on a white mothercare's romper.

These are for Natasha, a cute little chubby cheeks princess who looks exactly like my nephew :)
Uniquely her name means CHILD OF CHRISTMAS.

3RD DAY - SO FAR SO GOOD

2011-06-17T11:58:00.003+08:00

Whenever Jonathan has retching or vomiting sessions, i always switch to porridge water without milk.

3 days ago, I decided to put this into his daily diet. Only for 4 feeds out of the 5. His first milk feed is usually at 10am so I give him the usual water and milk. Then for the rest of the day, it's porridge water and milk powder together.

So far, it's been the 3rd day. I don't see him gag that much.

Perhaps it's the insufficient food intake that's making Jonathan have gastric problems. I'm still not sure. But this porridge water, cooked really thick, does help. A friend suggested alternating with organic brown rice water. Will try this at a later stage.

I just got a call from KK Neuro Dept this morning informing me about the appointment with the gastro doctor on July 20th. Thanks to Dr JW for giving us the referral. At least it will give us an idea how his tummy is functioning and hopefully there will not be any acid reflux at all.

He tells me now whenever he's hungry so that's good. He's growing and I guess he will need more than what he's taking now. Will call the nutritionist to see if there's a free slot on 20th as well.

Thank you Lord!

Jeremiah 30:17 "I have given you back your health and heal your wounds", says the Lord.

NUTRITION ... IS HE GETTING ENOUGH?

2011-06-13T02:50:00.000+08:00

I'm not sure if Jonathan is taking in enough nourishment although I've met up with the nutritionist. I may have to see her again.

The current feed given was 6 scoops of Isomil EyePlus but increase to 7. But whenever I increase the milk feed, he has diarrhoea too.

Tried to switch back to goat's milk but had diarrhoea.

I think he needs more.

I need wisdom to do this.

ACID REFLUX

2011-06-04T23:50:00.002+08:00

I have been busy. And I have been stressed over Jonathan's health again.

Lately, he's been drooling a lot. He's nose, since a while back has been stuffy. He's also be gagging quite a bit and sometimes out of the blues, he starts retching.

A few days ago, he arched his back twice during feeding time.

My friend's daughter just had a reflux test done 2 days ago. She's going for surgery to get a feeding button fitted. She called me to update about the test and she mentioned "heartburn".

After our conversation, I began to wonder if Jonathan is actually having acid reflux or Gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Read more HERE.

I googled for acid reflux symptoms and found these:

Older infants and children are more likely to have more subtle or 'silent reflux' symptoms, including:

irritability
trouble sleeping
anorexia
weight loss
failure to thrive
arching the back while feeding
apnea
painful or difficulty swallowing
recurrent abdominal pain
chest pain
a chronic cough, recurrent pneumonia, or persistent asthma symptoms
a hoarse voice
Sandifer syndrome - posturing episodes that are often mistaken for seizures
nausea

Jonathan didn't show most of the symptoms up there. But he has also been waking up in the middle of the night, runny nose, nausea and the arching of his back while feeding.

I'm not certain whether he is having GERD. But since he had his button done, he also had fundoplication too. So I'm not sure what's happening at the moment.

So this evening, he suddenly started showing signs of being unwell. I decided that we should just take him to the doctor's. Told the GP about my suspicion and he prescribed gastric pills and Domper for stomach pain, to be taken once a day.

I'm going to see how this is going to take effect. I read that giving too much antacid is not good as well so I asked for the smallest dose first.

Will write to his neuro. Told Harith that we should get his reflux checked.

All these while, since early this year, the vomitting was more frequent and yet I kept thinking it's because of his blocked nose and drainage that was causing him to retch.

I'm hoping that it will not be reflux problem. I don't want him to go through surgery again. But for now, I have to give him his feed, then prop him up for at least 2 hours before I let him lie down again.

I feel for him. I feel sad that he has to go through the retching episodes again and it's taken me this while to realise that. I was too absorb in thinking that so long as the milk doesn't come out of his mouth like what they describe about patients with severe reflux, that means he's ok.

This evening, when he heard me call the clinic, he started tearing. He hates to go there because of the smell of medicine each time he enters the place.

I need to be more sensitive to his needs. I need to pay more attention to him. Sometimes to compensate to prevent coughing, he suddenly jerks his body and I will ask him to control himself. I shouldn't have done this. I should have helped me in whichever way I can. I MUST REMEMBER THIS!!!

Lord...continue to give me wisdom to help Jonathan and be more aware of his immediate needs.

IT'S HERE AGAIN!

2011-04-21T17:29:00.000+08:00

I'm just wondering why is it that Jonathan keeps having stuffy nose? Maybe the house is too dusty with all the tshirts that I have for my printing, maybe the air is unclean, maybe his immunity is low?

Doctor said today that it's the environment. To solve the problem complete, move to Perth or Melbourne.

I asked ... "how about USA?" haha.

Yup...Jonathan's runny cum stuffy nose is back yet again. It's frustrating. Last night he slept and woke up a few times all because of the runny nose even though he was given Zyrtec before sleeping.

In the heat of my frustration of seeing him going through this, I gave him Piriton, which I wasn't supposed to. but it did help him sleep till 10am.

Now he's on another dose of Augmentin. doctor was saying it's really in the air. Having air purifier doesn't help much because we don't want him to be in the enclosed room and then having problem when it comes to normal air.

So besides having Augmentin, he was prescribed Dhasalone (180mls to be completed) and Singular tablets that supposed to treat asthmatic patients to get rid of any sensitivity.

In 15 days' time after completing the Singular tablets, we have to go back for a review to see if the medication works.

Hoping that this time around, we can really get rid of this nose problem.

IT COMES SUDDENLY

2011-04-10T20:40:00.000+08:00

Out of the blues, suddenly it just comes and stays throughout the whole night.

I'm talking about falling ill. Jonathan started coughing and gagging in the evening yesterday and then it started.

He wasn't throwing up but when he coughs, it gets so bad that it causes the retching sensation and he starts gagging and throwing up.

Thankfully I had all the medication in the fridge. I usually stock up and self medicate but if the situations worsen then it's a trip the doctor's.

He had a fitful sleep last night and I hardly caught a wink only to sleep for a couple of hours from 5am.

This morning, he woke up, I gave him the ventolin puff and he went back to sleep till 12pm which was good because both of us could rest.

He's better now, a little lethargic, but able to laugh at some wheel of fortune shows. He's sitting on the Rodeo now and watching some classical music performance.

Thank you Lord for speedy recovery.

BOOKMARKS & BIRTHDAY CARD

2011-04-02T03:09:00.001+08:00

I completed an order of 9 bookmarks in mid March. I'm quite happy with the results and the friend who ordered them was really happy with them.

For the front, I got some free vector art from the web, incorporated them together with the verses that the friend wants for each student. Laser printed them onto cardstock and laminated only this side.

For the back, I used assorted scrapbook pattern paper, cut out the names with my Pazzles Inspiration. Then I created a 0.1cm path over the letters and thus gave them each a dark or white background.

As usual, my love for rick rack ribbons never ends. My only mistake was putting glue on the paper instead of directly on the ribbon. By applying glue onto the paper and then pasting the ribbon down, it spreads the glue and they ooze out, making the paper dirty. I definitely will not use this method again!

So here are the completed bookmarks:

Note: My all time favourite bookmark is Peter's. It was tough initially but the Lord gave me the inspiration for that bookmark. I only regretted using the odd fonts for Sain Chee's card.

And at the same time, I finished (finally!!!) the 2nd birthday card.

I used patterned paper and cardstock to cut out 4 circles using the Martha Stewart circle cutter. Once they are cut, I folded them into halves and joined them to make it into a square card. The flower was the lace ribbon that I bought earlier.

Sewed the 2 circles to using cross-stitch thread. And put clear birthday stickers.

I've still have a few more birthday booklets to finish. but in the meantime, I have to start working on another 10 bookmarks for the same friend.

Thanks for dropping by!

AGAIN

2011-04-01T19:48:00.000+08:00

Yup...again. Jonathan woke up this morning with blocked nose at 6.30am.

He was scheduled for a dental check up today at NDCS. I wasn't comfortable having him travel all the way to Tiong Bahru with the lack of rest.

This blocked nose has been persistent. It clears after a dose of medication and a few days later, returns to bug him again.

Doc today said it's allergy. He checked Jonathan's nose and said it's inflamed. So now he's on Augmentin antibiotic because he's just recovered from pneumonia not long ago. We need to "nip this in the bud" before it escalates. Accumulated phlegm and secretion will attract bacteria. Right now, only his big airways are noisy.

To prevent having watery stools due to the antibiotics, he also prescribed Lacteol Fort to counter irritable bowels syndrome. That's what I give whenever he has loose stools or vomit episodes. I was first introduced to this by one of Jonathan's ex-teacher.

Ever since after chinese new year, Jonathan had small rashes on his tummy, lower back and under arms. When we were at the neuro appointment, I raised this issue and Dr W said they look like a type of allergy rash and prescribed antibiotic cream. Today I asked Dr Ong and he said the same thing. But since our prince is already on antibiotics, he prescribed a stronger cream. Hopefully with the allergy medication, the rashes will go away soon.

Tonight, his nose was slightly better. Dr Ong mentioned that by Monday, everything should clear.

I hope this will be the last set of medication I will have to give him.

Thank you Lord for speedy recovery!

AFO VERSUS SMO = AFO FITTED

2011-04-01T03:08:00.002+08:00

A referral to the rehab department at KK was given by Dr W when I asked to make a pair for Jonathan in my previous post HERE.

So we were fortunate that a patient didn't turn up for his/her appointment and we could be slotted in to see Orthotist Heidi.

Initial recommendation by Dr W was that we could make an SMO (Supra-Malleolar Orthosis) that looks like this:
Note: More information on SMO HERE

It is fitted right up to the ankle, which would be good for standing, but the PT who was present said that SMOs break easily if we use it for walking exercises.

Well, we met Heidi. She made Jonathan stood on his feet. After seeing his feet turned inwards, she recommended the AFO (Ankle-Foot Orthotic, more information HERE) because the AFO stretches right up to the calf and will give a better support to his ankles.

Before putting the cast, she marked his legs and feet. I'm actually not quite sure what it was for. The ink was still evident when we got home.

So started the process of casting to make the AFO. Below, a guide was put on his shin.

Then Heidi started wrapping his leg with the wet case that actually looks like gauze with white cement. You had to dip this gauze into water then start to wrap around the leg before it hardens.

This was before his foot was wrapped. She needed two plastripes.

Jonathan just couldn't keep still. Once the calf part is done, she proceeded to cast his foot and it was not easy. We had to bend his leg at the knee and hold his foot into position so that it will fit correctly. See he keeps moving his legs and Heidi had to really hold his leg tight while I held on to this knee. Heidi was kicked a few times.

The cast hardened quickly and using a scalpel-lookalike, she cut the cast right through the middle where the plastic guide was first place.

Thus ending the casting process.

We will have to return to Tan Tock Seng Hospital for the fitting soon and then back to KK Rehab Department for follow-up on the use of the AFO.

NEURO APPOINTMENT

2011-03-20T04:26:00.000+08:00

Jonathan had his appointment with Dr JWong, Neurologist at KK on Thursday 17th March.

This is what we did:

Measured height - he has grown approximately 10cm from the last appointment about 1.5 years ago.
I took him out of the buggy and made him stand while the Harith held his body, I put his feet down and the nurse took the measurement. It was just a rough estimate.
Took weight - not much has changed since the last appointment with the Dietitian
Discussed about his motion sickness. She said there are 2 possibilities for this.
A) Ear balance. Inside our ears, there are little hairs that are swerved to one side. If there is water or anything inside the ear, the hairs will start swerve too and fro and that causes ear imbalance and thus a person will feel giddy or nauseated.
B) It's the brain that makes him feel this way.
She checked his ear and his ears were ok. So point A is ruled out. Something that we have to deal with each time we go out.
She checked his spine, at the same time saying the Convaid Cruiser doesn't really give him good body support. But proceed to ask if we had another better support chair with full support, which we do when we got it from Make A Wish Foundation (HERE). This Convaid Rodeo gives a better support to Jonathan's body.
A physiotherapist was present during our appointment so he checked Jonathan's legs and we talked about AFO (Ankle-Foot Orthosis). I wanted to do another pair because he has outgrown the old pair made a few years back. DrW suggested SMO (Supra-Malleolar Orthosis). The PT mentioned that if I wanted to practice walking with the SMO, it will break easily because it's not meant for that type of exercise. I will post more about this later with pictures of how we got Jonathan fitted with the AFO after he was seen by the Orthotist/Prothestist.
We spoke about him leaving school. DrW felt he should continue but then she said that the stress would be there for both of us. She tried to find a way for us to get home therapy but the cost was way to high, stating that home therapy charges are now at least SGD150 per hour. I intend to register him for therapy at the Society for the Physically Disabled at Tampines. But right now I haven't done it yet.

That was about what we did for during our appointment. We got our referral for Jonathan to get him fitted with the AFO/SMO and immediately there was a blank spot for the Orthotist to see us, which was great! More about it in the next post.

For the record this time around, Jonathan did not throw up after we reach home. Praise the Lord for that.

17 YEARS OLD

2011-03-13T18:31:00.000+08:00

Harith and I turned 17 on Saturday 12th March. It's been a year since I posted HERE. But nothing much as changed except our age. haha.

We didn't go anywhere to celebrate. We just stayed home, had sushi delivered, said a prayer for ourselves and Jonathan and enjoyed each other's company, especially Jonathan's.

Thank you for loving me these past 17 years Harith.

I LOVE YOU <3

WHEN YOU'RE ON MEDICATION

2011-03-11T05:20:00.001+08:00

That's when you really need God's strength and grace, especially when the medication gives you heart palpitation and side effects and it makes you really edgy.

And especially when your child wakes up in the middle of the night just when the medication sets in and you just can't open your eyes.

I was irritated. I was upset. Upset that I had fallen sick. Coughing away and letting Jonathan get it.

Just when I thought he was better, his nose was blocked tonight. Woke up at 4am, fidgetted so much trying to go back to sleep, kept asking me to carry him upright. I started speaking louder than a whisper and of course that woke Jonathan up even more.

He just couldn't go back to sleep. I wanted to give him some milk but he refused; only to relax a little later when I was less edgy and agreed to be fed. Told me that he'll go back to sleep after his feed.

Changed his diaper after that, i decided to turn on the computer to get my mind off things earlier. He was able to relax more and started making gentle conversation with me.

A few seconds later, his eyes closed and he fell asleep. I can still hear him trying to breath through his nose. But he's just adjusted his position and has now returned to sleep.

It's 5.12am. Raining outside and I'm coughing again. Decided to take the cough mixture. Although I can't fall asleep now, I'm sure the medicine will kick in soon and I'll be feeling drowsy.

But for now, I'm entertaining myself on youtube, watching the American Game Show "Family Feud".

"Lord, I thank you for grace and strength, especially when it comes to the affairs of Jonathan. Patience is most needed and when things get out of hand, please take FULL CONTROL of it for me. Because when You are here, please remind me Jonathan is innocent in all these and I'll be able to calm down. Thank you Lord."

SHORT SESSIONS WITH JONATHAN

2011-03-09T00:38:00.000+08:00

I will sit with Jonathan on the mat, my legs crossed over his and I will take the time to exercise his brain.

Meaning?

I will give him a list of words to spell. He's still good at sign spelling. I will give him a choice of 2 sign language alphabets and he will touch the letter one by one. For him, spelling is easy. He's pretty good with consonant and vowel sounds, although he does make a mistake here and there with longer words. Tribute to the Wheel of Fortune LOL.

Then I will give him some simple (really really simple) math problems to solve. It's been a while since he's done that so I gave him this question:

You have 12 pencils and your friend borrowed 5. How many do you have left? Give him a choice of answers and he picks 7.

I'm thankful he can calculate mentally. That's one of his strong points.

After all these, we will have short a short conversation.

Me: Do you want to use the alphabet board to spell or talk?
Jon: No
Me: Do you want to use the communication program that Auntie Vicki gave?
Jon: No
Me: You prefer to use the sign language alphabets?
Jon: Yes
Me: Why?
Jon: Because it is faster (given choices of answers)

He loves it when I sign a song, although my sign language is way below par. haha.

I still haven't started him on the communication program that my friend passed to me. And I haven't registered him for therapy yet. But for now, it's standing for a short time once in a while.

Today, he caught a cold again. Woke up last night at 4am and didn't go to sleep till almost 6am. He was so tired today that his immunity just dropped and he started having lots of secretion. But thankfully, he's able to sleep now. Hopefully no more thunder and lightning to wake him up.

I'm still coughing and perhaps that's why he's caught it from me again.

Praying tomorrow will be better. Thank you Lord!

RIBBONS AND SUCH

2011-03-07T17:12:00.006+08:00

I'm running out of ribbons. Actually I do have a tiny box of ribbons but they are old and outdated. And I'm also out of Rick Racks. So today, I went down to People's Park to get my stash of ribbons and while there, found some really cute and lovely wood and plastic buttons.

Rick Rack ribbons are my favourite! I bought 8 colors at $0.40 / yard from a button shop there.

Beautiful swirl ribbons and flower lace

These buttons (below) were from another shop also at the same building.

Plastic flower buttons ($0.20/pc)

These wooden buttons range from $0.50 to $1.50

I also found these lovely roses from the same store at $5/yard. I don't know what use that will be but I just decided to buy it because I don't know when I'll go back there again.

Here's another birthday card order. I bought a quilling set many years ago and decided to take it out to decorate a birthday card. I just layered a few colored cardstock, white being the base. I used foam alphabets. Kinda got stuck because the white part is a little sparse. But Harith said it's ok to leave it as it is. what do you think?

Here's a closeup:

{Note: What is Quilling? CLICK HERE}

What do I plan to do with all the "old" ribbons? I thought I'd just lay them on a cardstock to make it into a ribbon pattern paper. Hope it works out. Will post it when I'm done. That may take a while :) hee hee

Thanks for dropping by!

CHEST PHYSIO

2011-03-04T21:32:00.000+08:00

and that's what I've been doing for Jonathan.

When Jonathan was young during his early years between 1 and 5 years old, his frequent hospitalization has sort of taught me a few medical skills.

One being the chest physio.

While it's hard to watch what is done to our children who have special needs and going through pneumonia, this chest physio is vital to help get rid of the sticky phlegm that accumulates in the lungs whenever they lie down to much or not so active.

More so, during those times, I wanted to learn so that I could help him at home and avoid hospital stays. As many of us moms and dads know that staying in hospital is so tiring, although medical care is at arm's reach.

Two weeks ago, Jonathan came down with the flu. His lungs were quite noisy. So besides the ventolin inhalant we had to administer, I was reminded to start chest physio.

Even though he's recovered, I still do it now. Once when he wakes up in the morning and another during the afternoon.

This is how I chest physio. I will cup one of my hands, as like a bowl shape. Then turn him to one side. Some therapists will put a towel over the side of the body where the lungs are (but I usually don't.) Then i start patting. After I have patted for a few minutes, I put both my hands over the side of the body. When Jonathan exhales, I vibrate the lungs with my hands. This is supposed to loosen the phlegm. And the vibration is done only when Jonathan exhales (breath out). I then repeat the other side of his body.

Normally for a child who doesn't know how to cough out the phlegm, suction is done. But for Jonathan, he already knows how to cough.

I used to have to "feel" Jonathan's breathing. But now, he's good at it and knows what to do whenever I administer the chest physio. When I say "breath", he will inhale deeply and then exhales.

If you need to do this for your child and not sure what to do, there are some video clips on Youtube. Just type in chest physio. But the best thing is to still seek a doctor's or physiotherapist's help.

Wishing everyone healthy!

DESIGNS

2011-02-26T13:59:00.000+08:00

I tried it and succeeded.

I mean ... I was told initially that the vinyl will not stay on the wood because there might be a possibility that the vinyl will peel if used under hot pot.

Last night I decided to print this on the wood coaster:

Then I used a small plate filled with hot water and placed over it. The vinyl remained intact. I think I'll try putting a metal pot of hot water over it to see the results. Next test will be the opaque transfer.

Designed a smiley face tshirt for my sister's student. Used orange vinyl on royal blue drifit. I decided to use his initials JW to make the hair of the smiley face. Hope he likes it.

Thanks for dropping by!

GOOD NIGHT

2011-02-25T03:37:00.000+08:00

or should I say "Good morning!" my visitors? It's Friday 3.25am.

I'm not sleepy...don't know why. Still on antibiotics (Augmentin this time) and sleepy medication. But I still can't sleep. I guess the work that I have to finish for a customer is pumping my adrenalin.

I totally lost track of time! the couple has ordered 10 pcs of polos for their bridal entourage and their wedding is on the 6th of March. I kept thinking there's another week before their wedding until we met tonight to confirm the shirts and design that I realised I have exactly 4 days to finish the work. Yup! 4 days to order the shirts, buy my printing materials, cut, press, pack and for them to pick up by Thursday.

Thankfully Harith is here to help with get the materials that I need. It's hard cos Jonathan has just recovered from his lung infection and I don't want to leave him at home alone with his daddy because both of them will be having fun watching Wheel of Fortune and Jonathan will get all excited and that will start up the phlegm again. LOL.

Hey! I must tell you about this guy whom I found online. While googling for hoodies, I chanced upon his blog. He's name is Jit and he's a sketch artist and I must say he's really good. You can see his sketches HERE. Wow...I wish I can sketch like that. Doodling doesn't count does it? haha. I just LOVE caricatures! And you can pay him to do a caricature for you too. Well...enjoy his work. It's really great :)

Maybe I should just turn off the computer and go to bed. Or I'll watch a little K-drama just so that I'll slowly drift off to sweet slumber. haha.

Thanks for dropping by! Good morning Singapore!

OUT OF SCHOOL

2011-02-24T04:30:00.000+08:00

I wrote a short para HERE that we have decided to take Jonathan out of school. Yup...a permanent holiday for him and me. No more stress about going to school. But a new set of "stress" of what should I do with him now that we are 24/7 at home.

Right now ... it's youtube and television, music and outdoor walks.
Right now ... no therapy, no work for him.
Right now ... I will lie down next to him any time of the day, talk to him, sing to him, sign to him, hug him, hear him sing, hear him talk to me, feel him close to me, let his head rest on my shoulder, feel his hands on my face, his hands holding mine, his feet kicking me. This is the biggest PLUS point of staying at home.

I'm taking a long break. Which to some others ... THAT'S NOT GOOD!

I'm taking my time. Which to some others ... THAT'S NOT GOOD!

Bumped into a parent from the school who felt that I was making the wrong decision of letting Jonathan stay at home. With her loud voice at the store, she said "you must let him go for therapy! Or else ah, he will become lazy! I cannot tahan if my child don't go to school. I need my free time. You everyday stay at home with him you can tahan meh?"

I smiled. I know she means well in her own words. But I don't need to repeat the reasons for my withdrawing Jonathan. My close circle of family and friends know what Jonathan had to go through each time we embark on the journey to Pasir Ris. So that's enough for me.

So the next time another parent asks my why? I'll just say "He needs to stay at home". Full stop.

He still has another 4 years of school if I decide to let him go back. Most likely not. But then again ... you'll never know what the Lord has in store for him.

A friend has given me a communication program to work with Jonathan but I haven't explored the software yet.

And for the time being ... I need to get my child into therapy. Wake up Bie. It's time to move!

OF BEING ILL AND MEDICATED

2011-02-22T12:31:00.000+08:00

I was ill last week and the cough just wouldn't go away. But then again...my tonsils were so badly swollen that even swallowing my saliva was painful.

Then it hit Jonathan. He came down with blocked nose then escalated to infected lungs. With all the chest physio and Ventolin inhalant treatment, and thankfully, after 3 days of antibiotics, the doctor said his lungs are all clear. But we still have to nurse his blocked and sometimes runny nose that is slowly recovering.

Thank you Lord for his speedy recovery.

One of the treatments that we have learned since Jonathan was 3 years old, was introduced by a GP who felt that giving Ventolin orally wasn't good for Jonathan's body. She explained that taking oral Ventolin not only helps to clear the respiratory tract and lungs, but also affect other parts of the body.

She was right. Whenever Jonathan took Ventolin orally, he became so hyper that sleeping at night was difficult. She recommended we use the Ventolin inhalant. But because he was too young and didn't know how to inhale from the puffer, she got us the aerochamber.

So we have been using this apparatus for a long time. We tried the nebulizer machine once but he didn't like it because of the weerrriing sound it makes and it doesn't really help clear his lungs. By using the aerochamber, the Ventolin goes directly into his respiratory tract and lungs because the mask is cupped over his nose and mouth and he just needs to breath in and out. Against oral Ventolin, this is a better option and doesn't affect his whole body.

This is how the aerochamber works:

The price of this aerochamber being sold at our local pharmacy is probably $50 (or more ... I can't recall).

I'm thankful for all the GP doctors that Jonathan has seen has seen so far because they provided the best solutions. Thank you Lord for leading us to them :)

Hope the above information will be able to help anyone who reads this blog post.

God bless you and your children with good health!

DOES WEATHER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH FLU?

2011-02-16T13:10:00.002+08:00

Maybe there is, depending on how you see it.

I've lost my voice. It was quite bad yesterday. And I notice some people sort of avoiding me so as not to catch my flu. I don't have runny nose. Just that my tonsils are as huge as big fish balls.

When I talked to others, the first they blame is the weather. So does the weather really have any contribution to the flu that people catch? I don't know. I blame the food I eat. haha. Actually I blame ME for putting the food down my throat that I know are potentially "heaty".

Well...here I am trying to talk to Jonathan and the voice just wouldn't amplify. In the end I had to ask Harith to repeat my instructions, which of course, was answered with a quick response from my prince.

I'm avoiding as many close contact as I can with Jonathan. And I've used up all my masks. But thank God, he's been ok. And that I don't cough so much does help in a way.

Here's wishing anyone out there who is ill .. SPEEDY RECOVERY!

OF BEACH AND BOOKLETS

2011-02-11T02:42:00.001+08:00

Beach and books do go hand in hand when you plan to go there to read and enjoy the sun, sand and sea.

We did go to the beach on Monday (7th Feb). No, we didn't bring any books.

Jonathan protested when we reached Changi Village. He's not a nature person but a cityscape kid. After a short breakfast, we proceeded to the beach. The Lord blessed us with excellent weather, windy and cool. Not much sunshine and it was perfect. Jonathan's protests immediately stopped and he began to enjoy the breeze as we walked along. After we finished what we were there to do, instead of hurrying us to leave, Jonathan decided that he wanted to go to the Boardwalk, which was at the other side of Changi Village.
It was too hot then. We promised him the next time.

Some pictures to share:

Later we proceeded to Changi Airport for lunch:
This is one of my favourite beverage ... lemon juice with sour plum.

Harith had Yee Mee (stir fried flat noodles) with mushroom

I had hor fun (flat rice noodles in gravy)

And while we were eating, the little prince had a good laugh listening to his Whee of Fortune tape:

Today, I finished another 3 birthday booklets that my friend ordered. I kinda like these 3 better compared to the first 2 I made earlier (HERE).

I used yarn / fabric paper / heat tranfers for the alphabets / zots dimensional tape. Front:

I wound the rainbow yarn making them zig-zag across the cover. Did the same for the back cover. The alphabets were cut from vinyl transfers and heatpressed onto the fabric paper. I mounted them on cardstock to make them stronger.

I used glitter pattern paper for the cover, felts for the squares and Doodlebug Alpha Stickers. The ribbon was taped below the felt squares.

I only use plain cardstock for the cover, ribbons and chipboard alpha-bites designed by American Crafts.

I love it that there are dashes on the chipboard alphas:

That's about it for today. My table is a mess so I have to start packing before I take them out again to do another few more birthday booklets.

Thanks for dropping by :)

FOURTEEN

2011-02-06T23:25:00.000+08:00

We had fun taking this video. But I turned off the back light because I wanted Jonathan to see the candles.
He was pleasantly surprise when I brought the cake out. Notice that he also tried to blow the candle light out.

Jonathan is 14. Officially older by another year but still a baby to us. Although lacking in some areas but he's still perfect in every way.

14 years is a long time. It brings me back to day one. When everything was all set but became a setback.

But this setback has been set straight. It's a totally different journey now and everyday is a different life experience. And we are improving as we go along.

What has Jonathan accomplished?

1) Able to spit water from his mouth.
2) Knows how to get rid of hiccups by covering his mouth and nose.
3) Able to pronounce some words at the spur when you encourage him to.
4) Pull his t-shirt down whenever it moves up from his tummy (see HERE).
5) Helps me to pick up a t-shirt / towel near him (see HERE)

We brought him to Tampines 1 to choose his cake but he didn't want to buy any. We asked him what present he wanted, he said "No Need". But we bought the cake anyway. We wanted to.

He celebrated his birthday with his mama (Harith's mum) on 5th Feb. That's her actual birthday. He almost didn't want to go for the birthday dinner but in the end, reluctantly agreed. We were at Yummy Thai Restaurant (at 285 Changi Road) and the food was nice. Thank-you to his aunties, uncles and cousins for his gifts.

But today, being his actual birthday, we did our own private celebration. Here are some pictures of us with Jonathan we took this evening :)

The cake called Secret Garden was bought from The Icing Room at Tampines 1. It's rather delicious cake. Sponge cake with cream and red beans in between.

Excuse my hair that's all messed up heh heh (below). Harith holding Jonathan's hand to cut the cake.

Thanks for dropping by :)

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

2011-02-05T23:23:00.000+08:00

Reunion dinner ... check!
First day visitation to grandma (Harith's) ... check!
2nd day visitation to ma ma (Bie's) ... check!
Ang pows given ... check!
Ang pows received ... check! LOL!

I'm glad we have finished what we planned to do for this chinese new year. Food was great at Harith's mom's place.
Peranakan food like chap chye (mixed vegetables comprising of : vermicelli / mushroom / black fungus / cabbage)

Baba ayam buah keluak. You can refer to what this dish is HERE.

Bak wan soup (meatball soup with lots of bamboo shoot)

sambal prawns, homemade ngor hiang, all cooked by my Harith's mom, cousin and sister.

For the last 14 years, I wasn't able to give a helping hand since Jonathan was born and I'm thankful to them for cooking the delicious food.

This year, Jonathan was great! He went to both of his grandma's homes to 拜年 (send greetings) and stayed mostly for 2 hours or more. Thank God this time around, the medication I gave him worked and he was able to stay out for the lengthy period of time. Most of all the Lord provided excellent weather that it was windy and not humid.

Yesterday (2nd CNY day), when we were at my mum's, I greeted her xin jia ju yee (happy new year in Teochew dialect) and she replied with the same greeting. That was really nice to hear from her. The amusing part of our visit today was that my brother had a giant orange that was in a bag of oranges his friend gave. I just couldn't resist taking a photo.

This year, I made red packets again. I bought these really nice red papers embossed with flowers from a local scrapbook store. These papers are from Cordinations Cardstocks. At the store, they had 2 different designs but I bought this (see below) and they only have 7 pieces left. It was enough for me cos I used a faded red for the backing. Materials are the cardstock, glitter pailettes (Ellen Krans Mini-Butterflies) from Me&My Big Ideas and also Mini Alphabet Stickers from My Little Shoebox. Design for the red packets were simple and production only took 2 days.

i didn't put any embellishments cos the paper spoke for itself. the embossed flowers are pretty enough.

I'm glad the celebrations are over. At least now we, especially Jonathan, can rest :)

Here's wishing all my blog visitors 新年快乐!

CUSTOMIZED NAME CARD BOX

2011-01-30T23:02:00.000+08:00

My friend ordered a box of name cards from me. But it's hard to get hold of those transparent plastic name card boxes as they are sold in bulk of 200 pcs.

So I decided to make one myself.
Materials: 250gsm cardstock (for strong backing) / scrapbook cardstock / scrapbook pattern paper / double-side adhesive tapes / chipboard alphas / ribbon

Here are the steps:

Start off by taking the measurement of the name card. Leave at least a few mm more from the actual name card size. The actual height for 100 pcs of name cards is around 3cm high. So I worked from there. I had to have double folds for the edges. This main box takes up almost a whole A4 size paper.

Once above is done, work on the template for cover (below). Cover has to be 2mm wider than the main box.

Then start tracing on the cardstock / pattern paper. Here (below) I'm tracing out the cover.

Next, I prepare the insert to make the cover and main box stronger. This will be hidden once the flaps are folded. the insert has to be slightly smaller. Otherwise, the flaps of the main box will not fold properly.

When everything is ready, start putting them together. If you look closely, the white insert backing is already placed and adhered to the base. Then I put the pattern paper flap over it and seal it.

Once everything is in place, start applying double-sided tape (which has stronger adhesive) and press down for a firm seal.

Here's the finished box. I didn't seal the edges properly but the turn out was pretty good, I must say.

Adding chipboard alphas and tying a ribbon across to hold the box, here's the final outcome:

Hope you like my customized name card box. Thanks for visiting!

BIRTHDAY BOOKLETS

2011-01-27T21:44:00.001+08:00

I've started working on projects again. My friend has ordered birthday cards but I've decided to do birthday booklets instead. All the birthdays stretch through the year so I can do and mail/pass to her whenever they are ready.

Here are the first 2:

Materials for these 2: Chipboards / Fabric Paper / Ribbon / Pattern Papers / Zutter binding / Buttons

For the inserts, I used double-sided color cardstock and stamped on them using black Staz On ink and clear stamps that I borrowed from a good friend, Olive and she gave me some ribbons too, including the happy birthday one (above).

For their names, I used my tshirt transfers, cut out the names and printed on the fabric paper.

Two down and 9 more to go. I actually finished another one but will post it another time.

In the meantime, I just bought this fabulous small "equipment"... can I say that? haha. It's the Fiskar Scissors Sharpener. So small you can just store it in the drawer.

This little gadget is truly amazing! My scissors are sharpened with just a few slide across the white ceramic. The more you do it, the sharper it gets. You can get this from SCRAP-N-CROP.com! Here's youtube DEMO.

Thanks for visiting!

FROM 2010 TO 2011

2010-12-31T23:32:00.001+08:00

With today being the last day of 2010, my blog hit 20 thousand.

Thank you to all for visiting my blog and reading and sharing my journey with Jonathan and family and my creations.

There has been ups and downs. But today, as I was reading the bible. The Lord showed me that all things happen for a reason. Be it good circumstances or trials.

No I will not make any resolution.

Yes I will continue to seek the Lord more and seek His favor and grace, strength and wisdom, to help Jonathan and my work.

It's been an eventful year. We may have to carry forward some things but we shall not let any setbacks draw us down.

And with the new year, my nephew has helped me set up a website for the tshirt business. it's still new so not many items added. But still, I'm thankful to him for his great help!!

Check out the new Speiro Prints & Design website.

Happy New Year to all my family and friends, and visitors of my blog.

God bless!!!

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR HIS DADDY

2010-12-28T15:38:00.001+08:00

We printed a shirt for Harith. I found this artsy violin vector online (although if you look closely there's only 3 strings instead of 4. haha)

Jonathan chose the color of the shirt and decided on yellow for the violin after I presented him with different colors.

I wanted to have silver violin but Jonathan said no.

Tied it up with ribbon and when Harith came home, Jonathan presented it to him. While Harith was untying the ribbon, the excitement showed on Jonathan's face. I've never seen him so excited before when giving his daddy something.

He's matured and I loved that.

And daddy loves the shirt :)

HANDMADE .. ESPECIALLY FOR JONATHAN

2010-12-22T13:45:00.000+08:00

Harith loves to surprise Jonathan with little things and one of them is at Christmas. He always feels that Jonathan would love to see the lights on the Christmas tree and since last year, he started DIY-ing his own Christmas tree.

The tree Harith made in 2008 is HERE. this year, Harith came up with something nicer.

Jonathan was all smiles after seeing the tree light up. And that made Harith's day.

I told Harith he has to up his standards next year. haha

Only material used besides clear sticky tapes are just plastic boards. I love it too!

Thanks Harith!

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

2010-12-21T20:47:00.000+08:00

and I will be until this Thursday.

Last minute orders from friends I know who wanted to print something for somebody. And on top of that, I had to prepare for our family.

But I'm almost there. Just when I thot I didn't have enough time to finish my tag cards this year, these are what I managed to mail out yesterday, hoping they will reach my family and friends before Christmas.

just grunge up the ribbon to make it look 3-D

I made a mess just doing these tag cards. And because I was so busy, all of the presents were either unwrapped or put in envelopes which I later decorated (just a little) LOL!

Some nieces and nephews got personalised printed iPhone pouches from us.

And mine and Harith's brothers and sisters received 2 personalized printed wooden coasters. My family has already gotten them.

Designed this shirt for my nephew whom I have not seen for a long time. He loves motorbikes. Hope he likes it.

My nephew Caleb and his friend Rob came over from Tennessee for a Singapore holiday and The Tan family had an early Christmas party.

Delicious food were served (Pig's Trotters)

Otah:

Prawn Fritters and chicken rice chicken (bottom right):

and of course Olive's potato cutlet (love this!) and lots more food!

It was my turn to give out presents that the children were waiting for patiently

This is the tshirt I designed for Rob as a gift on behalf of the Tan family and he loved it. Later I added his chinese name at the front.

So much for the Tan Family celebrations. Come 25th we will have Harith's family and I have yet to finish their gifts!

But I also want to thank Make A Wish Singapore for giving Jonathan a special Don Moen CD that he loved. One of the volunteers dropped by to give it to him and he was very excited.

On the other note, received a letter from Jonathan's school principal to say he's not eligible for Home Management Program, which is more for others with deteriorating conditions. So we have decided to take him out of SCAS. My one concern was informing the Ministry of Education (MOE) but I found out from the social worker that at age 13, it is not necessary to inform MOE. So I'm at peace now :)

Thanks for visiting and here's wishing all my friends and blog readers a JOYOUS CHRISTMAS from us, the HO FAMILY!!

JONATHAN'S MORNING WORSHIP

2010-12-12T01:54:00.001+08:00

Whenever Jonathan wakes up in the morning, the first thing he asks for is to listen to Don Moen's worship songs. Sometimes he will sing along with them, other times, he just lies down and listens or get really excited.

He will ask for repeats for just the first 3 tracks.

But his all time favourite (so far), is this song:

I'm so happy that he's learned to worship the Lord at a very young age.

This morning, he was coughing a little and nose was a little stuffy. I asked him if he prayed for his healing and he said 'no'. I encouraged him and shared that he could pray for his healing and he said "ok".

Tonight, while we were getting ready for bed, I started praying and he too began to speak. He told me he wanted to pray. He made a few vowels sounds and after a short sentence, he stopped. That's when he said he'd finished praying.

Thank you Lord for our boy knows how to worship even though he still can't speak words yet.

Thank you :)

FEELING SICK

2010-12-09T03:30:00.000+08:00

Feeling sick : My whole body ached suddenly 2 nights ago. I felt feverish. I thought it was because I had too much peanuts that the uric acid started working up my bones because that has happened before. But I only had pistachio so that doesn't count does it?

Turned out I was coming down with a big flu. But thank God the panadol popping sort of reduced the aches and pains and fever came down. But then I started having gastric pains. Man!!

So while googling for good quotations for a new tshirt I'm designing, I came across this:

If ever you may have a big problem, don't say, 'God I have a big problem!',
but instead; 'Hey Problem, I have a big God and everything will be
okay! by Jinky

Whoever this Jinky was, I'm just glad I found this quote. Cos it boosted my day even though I was feeling lousy and occasionally I will say "HEY FLU BUG!! I have a BIG GOD and everything will be okay!!!"

Harith prayed for me and we went to sleep pretty early. Well ... do you consider 2am early? haha. I just wanted to stay up so that I could take another dose of medication.

Thank God this morning I felt much better. Thank you Lord! but the gastric pain is still here. Harith made me a cup of warm milo and it helped. Hopefully by tomorrow morning I'll be back to my good health, although i do feel so much better now.

Starting on my Christmas cards. Big Round Tags actually. This year I decided that I will mail out Christmas tags (size of round coasters) to family and close friends. Almost finished pasting the pattern papers on the chipboard coasters that I bought from a local art store. Cheaper than the round chipboard Maya Road, although thinner. But it doesn't matter so long as they serve the purpose.

Will post some pictures later when I'm done with them.

TAN SISTERS

2010-12-09T03:06:00.001+08:00

Had a wonderful lunch on Sunday (5th Dec) with Rosie and Nancy Tan, both of whom were my mentors when I was working at Singapore Airlines.

Don't we three look like sisters? Well ... Rosie and Nancy ARE sisters. haha.

I joined the company when I was 18. Got to know Nancy first and called her MUMZ cos she always said I could be her daughter :) Then after I went to work in the same department with Auntie Rosie when a secretary post was vacant there.

I left the company more than 10 years ago and we have kept in touch ... mostly through annual Christmas cards we send each other ..haha.

I always enjoy chatting with them. They are the most unpretentious and down-to-earth ladies I've ever known and I thoroughly enjoy their company :)

As usual, whenever we meet, they treated me to good food.

I was very happy to print these bags for them.

I put a packet of Marks & Spencer's cookies for them. Hope they like the cookies as much as I do LOL!

They gave me something very unique. A gift that only SIA staff can get and I truly love it.

A little thumb drive in a form of an SIA airplane. Something that I will cherish.

Thanks for a great time catching up Auntie Rosie and Nanz! We'll meet again soon!!

PILLOW CASES

2010-11-22T17:11:00.001+08:00

Harith's nephew, Roy, was posted to work in another country for a couple of years. My first thought for a gift is, of course, the shirt. haha.

I changed my mind and decided to give him a pair of pillow cases cause they will come in useful.

I had in mind that I should put all the names of his family and close cousins in a bubble. Roy calls it "thinking of all of you" pillow cases and he likes this best. And I like the caption very much. I just wish he had put his head there for me to take a picture. LOL. Here's a close up:

One pillow case is not enough. So here comes another :

Close up:

Another design done ... another person happy :)

NOT ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

2010-11-20T01:37:00.001+08:00

I had a funny conversation with Jonathan this evening. Of course it's always me asking questions and he answering with yes or no, or a choice of 2 words.

He just woke up from his nap and we were lying on his bed lazing.

Me: "Jon, do you want to go out later?"
Jon: "Yes".
Me: "Where do you want to go? Simei, Tampines Central, White Sands, CompassPoint?"
Jon: "No".
Me: "If you don't want to go to these places, then do you still want to go out?"
Jon: "Yes".
Me: "Do you want to take a taxi to go somewhere?"
Jon: "Yes".
Me: "So that means we have to go somewhere. How about just downstairs, Tampines Mart?"
Jon: "No"
Me: "huh? But you want to go out right?"
Jon: "yes"
Me: "Is it go out nearby or far away?"
Jon: He chose "nearby".

At this time, I was a little puzzled. I said "you want to go out, yet you don't want to go anywhere."

Suddenly .... ding ding!!!

Me: "You mean you want mommy to bring you out of the bedroom to the hall?"
Jon: "Yes".

I burst out laughing non-stop and he was grinning at me. hahaha.

Harith said I better pray for wisdom for myself because our son is getting smarter than I am! haahaha.

I was obviously not on the same wavelength as he was.

And who says that mommy is correct? LOL!

WHEN YOU FEEL OVERWHELMED

2010-11-13T23:22:00.000+08:00

I've been busy with tshirt orders. I love doing them. It's the last minute datelines changes that bogs me and I feel overwhelmed.

Then...I read this from the DAYSPRING ONLINE STORE newsletter I receive this week.

When you feel overwhelmed

Demands knock on my door.
Burdens beckon me to answer.
The to-do list stretches for miles.

I whisper, "I feel overwhelmed."
And in the stillness it seems I hear...

"Child, open your heart to Me
instead of the demands of the day.
Lay those burdens at My feet, not on your shoulders.
Let go of your list and dare to embrace My grace.
I do not require you to be overwhelmed.
I enable you to overcome.
And with Me, you always will."

I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33

--by Holley Gerth

RANDOM

2010-11-11T03:08:00.001+08:00

I've been busy. Orders came in and I've been working on my transfers and at the same time, the roller pushers on the Craft Robo had to be changed because the rubber had loosened.

Thank God it was easy to change.

Did some new designs which I liked very much. I did 2 different butterflies with 2 girls' names for my sister.
Printed them on cloth drawstring bags that I got from Daiso at $2 each.

A friend's daughter had her wedding last month and I did a simple LO for her. A Quick-One-Hour-LO, that's what I call it. LOL! Was rushing it off so that I could give them as a gift 2 days before their wedding.

The photo was from their wedding invitation card. I used alpha beads to spell out the month and year they were married. Didn't have numbers tho ...

Used my Pazzles Inspiration Cutting Machine to cut out their names. Turned out good.

I can't remember what brand I used for the pattern paper but the cardstocks I used were Bazzill.

BIRTHDAY CAME AND WENT

2010-10-25T20:33:00.002+08:00

How does one celebrate birthdays?

As you grow older, celebrations with friends and family take a back seat. What's important is that you have your own closest family with you. In my case, Harith and Jonathan.

19 October, I received wishes, blessings and greetings from loved ones, family members and friends. Thank you all for remembering.

I turned 44.

On that day, besides needing to go town to collect my printing materials, we decided to bring Jonathan to town.

This is what I had to pick up: Flex and printed order for Jonathan's school Scouts Camp

To make these flags:

The weather was cool, albeit slight drizzle that changed to rain, we were able to accomplish my errand and took a walk at City Hall basement shopping/food area because Jonathan liked it there.

After we picked up my stuff, we went to the Royal Hotel Queens for where we know we will probably be the only ones there having their really simple and cheap buffet lunch. The food wasn't that great, although they had bitter guord cooked with tofu (which is one of my favourites). But the place was good for us. No staring eyes on Jonathan, just us, peaceful and quiet, taking our time to savour the simple meal.

See...we had the whole restaurant to ourselves :)

After our meal, we walked across to the National Library to give Jonathan his lunch then proceeded to City Hall.

Since we were there, I spent some time at Paper Market (local scrapbook store). Wanted to get some Christmas papers anyway and bought these:

I got 25% off for buying 20 sheets of Christmas pattern papers (any brands)

Got 30% off for any 2 Christmas accents or die cuts or other elements.

I'm happy with my purchases. Not starting to make cards yet. Been busy.

Then 2 days ago, I decided that I was going to treat myself by printing a shirt for me! LOL!
Actually, I also wanted to try the new orange flex on a dark shirt.

So my birthday came and went and everything was back to routine. But I'm glad we could bring Jonathan to town without him fall sick. Thank you Jesus :)

HE IS BRAVER THAN I AM

2010-10-24T23:47:00.034+08:00

Tonight, at 11pm, Jonathan bled at the mouth after I brushed his teeth.

I thought he had bitten his lip again. But the blood continued to flow.

So armed with a small torch light, I proceeded to check his mouth and found that his tooth was loose (the same one that I mentioned HERE). It was shaky to the touch and his gum was sore and reddish.

Jonathan kept pushing it with his tongue. I asked if he wanted it out and he said yes.

So i proceeded to pull the tooth out. While doing that, my hand was trembling. I have no guts when it comes to this. His two front tooth were removed by the school nurse and I was so afraid to hurt him.

With him sitting on Harith's lap was also another concern for me because he is not secure.

The tooth was stuck. I couldn't and didn't want to yank it out fearing pain. So I stopped and asked Jonathan if he was hurting. He said no and still wanted the tooth out.

So after a quick prayer, I pushed it outwards and the tooth came off together with free flow of blood. I took gauze and ran to the kitchen for an ice cube.

Seconds later, the blood stopped flowing and minutes later, he told me it doesn't hurt.

I'm glad the tooth came out before he went to sleep. I was eying the same tooth a couple of days ago wondering when it was gonna come out.

Well, at least it's not bothering him anymore.

Thank God Jonathan has high threshold of pain. He was braver than me ... that's for sure! haha

WHILE THERE ... AT THE FUNERAL WAKE ...

2010-10-17T23:45:00.001+08:00

The only time I could say goodbye to PG was at her funeral wake on Wednesday night.

I'm glad I went.

While on the way there, I told the Lord that if there was a time when friends are asked to share about PG, I would go up and give my eulogy.

And I did. I wanted her family and friends to know how much she has helped me. I thank God that I could share my thoughts.

While there, I found out something that happened many years ago ... something that I didn't know about until now. About what PG felt when she gave me a gift for Jonathan before he was born and it had something to do with guilt. If I had known this I would tell PG : "It is NOT your fault."

While there, Jo reminded about the time I joined the bank's karaoke singing contest and after winning, PG said she wanted me to sing at her funeral. I remembered that conversation. I forgot about it after all these years.

While there, I was glad that Jo encouraged me to sing for PG. When Jo and I stood side by side, at the head of PG's casket, and I sang "I WILL ALWAYS LOVE YOU", the song I had sung for the contest and won. If I hadn't done it, like I initially was hesitant to do, I would have regretted it. Thank you Jo.

While there, I was told that PG mentioned about me to her niece quite a few times. I wish I could know what her thoughts were. Not to feed my self-esteem. But would like to know how she felt.

While there, I wish I had more courage to make calls to PG instead of just sending her Christmas cards each year before she passed on. And when her name popped up 2 weeks ago while I was preparing Jonathan's food, it totally slipped my mind. So many chances and yet I missed them all :(

But most of all ...

While there, I found out what a remarkable and religious person she had become. Touching peoples' lives and working at the church.

Then I realised, I have no regrets knowing who PG was and is and was.

I shared that she celebrated life. Yes she did. Even before she went Home, she was still her bubbly self.

She didn't want wreaths .. she didn't want donations. She didn't want to burden everybody.

That's how she was and will always remain that true person in everyone's hearts, including mine.

I wanted to attend her memorial services this evening. I even was ready to sing a song there.

On Thursday night, I was tuning into Youtube for Jonathan and was thinking about what I could give if I attended PG's memorial service and this song came on - WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN JESUS.

Then I wrote part of these words in tribute to PG:

What a friend I have in PG

There's none like her any where

What a privilege to know her

She's some one who really cares

This was only the first verse. I didn't finish the song. I couldn't go for the memorial service because of urgent matters.

But ...

Thank you PG .. for teaching me self endurance, to look at life in a different perspective. That there's always a rainbow at the end of every clouded sky.

IN MEMORY OF GOH POH GEOK

2010-10-13T10:48:00.000+08:00

I got to know PG (as she is affectionately known) 13 years ago when she joined the bank I was working in. We became friends because our bosses worked closely together.

When Jonathan was born, she was there to help me for the first year. She helped me with hospital bills and also bought an apnea machine for Jonathan because of his breathing problems. I still have the tiny machine at home.

After I left the bank to become a full time caregiver, she went on to work and a few years later also left the bank.

We didn't keep in touch with each other. But every year during Christmas, I always make a point to send her my home-made Christmas or Chinese New Year cards, sending my wishes and thanking her for all her help.

We never spoke or met up. The only one time I called her within these 13 years was a short phone call to ask how she was doing but it was cut short because she had to attend to her grand nieces/nephews that she was caring for.

Yesterday, I got an email from another friend that she passed away 2 days ago. It came as a shock.

PG was a gusty lady. A person who was ready to extend a helping hand any time. I find solace to know that she started attending church and even volunteering her services there.

For over 13 years, she pops up in my mind every now and then. I never picked up the phone to give her a call but to give a silent thought and prayer. 2 weeks ago, her name came up as I was preparing Jonathan's milk. I told myself I should call her but regretfully, because I was so busy then, it totally slipped my mind.

People say to me that if anyone suddenly comes to your mind ... you should just call or visit. But sadly, I missed that chance.

I wish I could have attended a gathering they had a few years back. But again, I wasn't able to because of Jonathan.

Now ... I will see PG again. But this will be my final goodbye.

"Thank you, again, PG. For the help you gave me during the first year of my life as a full-time caregiver. I will never forget that. I will remember the lunches we had with each other, of you telling me you love to eat vegetarian bee hoon but yet dislike the fact that they have too much MSG in them. I remember the time you took my place at the desk so that I could join the company's instant karaoke contest, winning $800.

I remember you ... as a fun loving person who extends your help but yet want to remain as low key as possible.

I will never have the change to send you my Christmas cards again. But you will always remain in my memory.

And most of all, I thank God for allowing me to get to know you.

Rest in peace PG"

IDEAL WEIGHT

2010-09-24T16:26:00.000+08:00

As of 21 September 2010, Jonathan weighed 23kg and 126cm tall.

My appointment with his dietitian at KK, Ms KY (who still remembers my name even tho we haven't seen her for the last 2 years) went well.

I'm glad that after his illness on 17 August, which saw Jonathan's weight dropping to 21kg, that he could put back 2kg with the Isomil Advance EyeQ Plus within a month.

Chatting with Ms KY gave me the assurance that he was on track although through the chart, his ideal weight should be 25kg. His height is ok. Growth has to be between 90-100% and Jonathan has achieved 91% under the CP growth.

So for now, she advised to stick to Isomil for 6 months just to give his tummy some rest. Thankfully, he's been able to consume soy milk without problem. Moreover, my also a little hesitant to switch him back to the goat milk (thus the reason why I want to sell off the balance of my stock HERE). Staying on soy milk helps that if he does fall ill again, there's no need to switch powder.

A friend recommended Isocal. Ms KY said it's actually a mixture of cow and soy milk but processed in such a way that is gluten and lactose free. But it's 1cal/ml which will be too heavy for Jonathan. And it's hard to find in local supermarkets. But we may consider this in future when Jonathan's older and needs more protein.

So for now, the feeding regime is 6.5 scoops of soy milk powder to 240ml water to make it 300ml for the next 3 days. When he's accustomed to the new amount, we increase it to 7 scoops till he reaches 25kg.

Thank you Lord for protecting Jonathan. Now, I can safely give him milk feeds even if he doesn't feel well.

CHILDREN'S DAY GIFTS COMPLETED

2010-09-23T22:20:00.000+08:00

The children's day gifts for my sister is complete. PTL!! This is a reload of my earlier POST.

These names (above) were cut with the Pazzles Cutting Machine. I used glossy colored cardstock bought from a local paper shop.

Names pasted onto the color pencil boxes.

This evening I used all the ribbons that I have and completed all 25 boxes:

I'm happy to finish these :)

SELLING KARIHOME WHOLE GOAT MILK

2010-09-23T11:37:00.001+08:00

I'm selling away 20 cans of my current stock of Karihome Whole Goat Milk Powder (400g tin) as Jonathan is unable to take them at the moment.

Selling price: $17 (UP $19)
Expiry date: 2012
Cash or bank transfer before collection. Sorry ... no delivery.
Please EMAIL me if anyone wants to buy. Thanks!

CHILDREN'S DAY GIFTS

2010-09-20T22:58:00.000+08:00

From a tiny box of color pencils

I helped my sister transform it into something simple for her kids in kindergarten:

This is just a sample. The color of ribbon and name varies.
Dimensions: 98mm(H)x42mm(W)x20mm(D)

The name was cut from cardstock using the Pazzles Cutting Machine. You can order from me too { and not necessary for Children's Day only :) }. Just EMAIL me.

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENIN'?

2010-09-17T21:22:00.000+08:00

Jonathan has been quite good lately. Perhaps the news of transferring to home management program made him happy and less stress. He's been sleeping well, except for 2 nights ago when he woke up at 3am after I changed his diaper and didn't go back to sleep till 7.30am!

but ... he's been talking alot, been up to his tricks lately.

He's also been pulling his feeding button (I think I mentioned this before somewhere) more regularly just to get our attention.

But today, he did something that totally surprised me ...

He was at it again and I warned him about the consequences of pulling his button. Then when I turned to look at him, he immediately pulled down his shirt to cover up the "cap-is-opened" feeding button. It was really an instant reaction on his part. haha. Well...I tried not to grin cos I was supposed to be the angry person.

Lately he's also been helping me "take" things that are within his reach for me.

Two nights ago, he did just that. I changed him into his PJ's and his shirt was lying somewhere else. He reached for it on his own. He turned his body ... moved his butt ... twisted his arm ... got his navigation right and all the while refusing help from me when I asked. Finally after about 5 minutes, he grabbed the shirt, turned his body and handed it to me.

Thank you sweet darling Jonathan. You are getting better with your hands. I think you may be ready for a new assignment soon. We'll see :)

And ... thank you Jesus :))))

CASE CONFERENCE

2010-09-13T20:32:00.000+08:00

The case conference involved Teacher SK, SW, PT~K, OT~M and ST~L.

It was a good meeting. I had my thoughts and queries sorted out.

We talked about options and how we can best help Jonathan and finally concluded that HMP (Home Management Program) will be good for now considering his current situation.

Thanks to PT K, I also found out that I don't need to withdraw Jonathan from the school. I could ask for a transfer to the HMP instead of "quitting" school directly. That way, if I want to try Jonathan for the school program, it's easier for me to apply for a place.

It was a relief to hear that. He's still got 5 years before he graduates and of course if I do get a chance, I would like to try again.

We talked about other things and was also given some advice by ST~L that was really good.

I'm grateful to his teachers and therapists who have helped in so many ways. And I hope that while staying at home, there will come a day when his health will improve.

Jonathan was also invited to join his classmates whenever they have class outing so he will not lose touch with them. That's really kind of the teachers. But I have to try and convince him and get him on the buggy first!

Thanks to all my family and friends who prayed for us. God bless you!

I'VE MADE THE DECISION

2010-09-12T23:04:00.000+08:00

Yup...I made the decision tonight. I've decided to take Jonathan out of school and try the home management program.

I spoke to him this evening. Asked if it was ok if he stopped school and the was "yes".

It was the 2nd hardest decision I had to make. The first when we had to decide to let him have the feeding button.

Like I wrote to my friends in facebook ... I hope this decision will be a correct one.

I actually wanted to cancel tomorrow's meeting with the teacher. Ever since I received the letter from the school Principal, my heart has been heavy. I just felt that the letter (albeit the first paragraph about being of any assistance) could have been sent after the meeting and not before. I guess the place for another student was top priority. My initial idea was to sign the form and return it back. But I still had questions I needed to ask.

I didn't have the peace to take Jonathan out of school. Neither did I have the peace to bring him back. I've tried (maybe not hard enough) to bring him back. But it has been difficult. So I decided to take the road less stress and I pray that God will give me the peace and strength to start something that's more constructive for Jonathan.

And maybe when he's more ready and I sort out his health issue (that has been bugging me for the last couple of years), I will register him for school again.

I've been tearing because somehow I feel that I've given up something for Jonathan that might benefit him. But his health outweighs that.

And maybe after tomorrow's meeting I will feel better. And bringing him out for walks at the beach or mall during school days will no longer be guilt trips :)

In the meantime, he's currently a chair and mat potato with the TV and YouTube. And his answer to my question:

"Will you still be intelligent and smart even if you don't go to school?"

was "Yes."

SHOULD I WITHDRAW?

2010-09-08T19:05:00.001+08:00

Received a letter from Jonathan's school principal today to asked if we would like to withdraw him with immediate effect from his school because he has been absent. They needed the place for other students who are on the waiting list.

This came as a total surprise. I guess it's got something to do with my consideration of putting him on Home Management Program. We were going to have a meeting next week. I guess I will have to call the social worker for clarification..

It brings a lot of guilt ...

I feel guilty that I have deprived Jonathan of school.
I feel guilty that I am not doing enough for him.
I feel guilty that if I do bring him back to school, his vomitting will start again.

My heart feels heavy. I still want to keep trying to bring him to school. But if someone else needs a place then my not bringing Jonathan will deprive someone of the opportunity.

Sad that it has to come to this. Hopefully at the meeting next week we will be able to come up with something suitable for Jonathan.

FRINGE SCISSORS

2010-09-08T11:50:00.001+08:00

I talked about this HERE. And the scissors arrived yesterday (in good and excellent condition, thanks to Scrap-n-Crop.com!)

The sharp blades cut easily and evenly. Not a heavy scissors so it's easy on the hands. I tried it on thin foam and even though some didn't slit properly, I could still make this:

Used a thin piece of foam and twirled it around a pencil.

FEEDING BETTER

2010-09-06T22:24:00.001+08:00

Yesterday morning I decided to "chong ah". haha.

Well...I woke up in the morning, prayed and decided that I was going to give him 6 scoops of soy milk powder (the same amount as the goat milk) instead of just 4 as per instructed on the tin and also my self imposed 2.5hr feed in between.

He didn't gag. Continued today and was ok only to be "threaten" by symptoms this evening. But after letting him sit on his chair for more than an hour and 2 sachets of fluimucil, he was ok.

I'm currently giving him Isomil 1 Advance Eye Q Plus (0-6 months). They have more nutrients than the Isomil 3 which is for 1-10 yr olds. So far, his bowel movement is ok. Doing it between 2-3 days.
This afternoon I faxed a letter to KK Nutrition and Dietetics. Awaiting their reply.

A friend recommended Isocal, which is new to me. If in any case Jonathan cannot take goat milk, I'll have to consider that. She also shared with me about another friend whose children are taking probiotics as supplements. They hardly fall sick. Seems probiotics boost the immune system too. Will go check it out at health shops.

PEACE AND REJOICE

2010-09-05T11:48:00.002+08:00

I've been troubled by Jonathan's health. Even with the soy milk, he sometimes will start gagging in the afternoon. I guess I'm not feeding him enough to sustain his appetite. I will have to call the dietitian at KK hospital.

Last night was the same problem. He had secretion and started coughing and I felt terrible just seeing him gagging all the time. We decided to take turns letting him sit on our laps so that he will not gag too much compared to lying on the mat and we didn't want to use the chair. My heart was very heavy with worry and anxiety. I just didn't want another episode of vomiting again.

So while H went to get dinner, I turned on the TV to distract myself and the travel program "Japan Hour" was on. Sadly, that made me even more disheartened. To know that there is such a beautiful place and we will never be able to explore.

Then I heard it...the beautiful background music that came with the scenery. Softly at first, then gradually became louder. Trying to remember what this song was, I realised it was "MY PEACE" without vocals.

I don't know if this music was composed by a Japanese but it was an old worship song that encouraged me many years ago.

My heart was lifted. God spoke to me with that music on a secular channel.

"My peace I give unto ...it's a peace that the world cannot give ..."

Thank you Lord. But He didn't stop there.

Whenever I put Jonathan down to bed, I will turn on my laptop to watch K dramas. But last night, I just didn't have the mood and the Lord prompted me to watch a talk by Joyce Meyer.

The topic online was "HEART TEST". The whole message was that whatever we are going through is a test that we will have learned a good lesson and be victorious towards the end.

The part that struck me was when she quoted Habakkuk 3:17-19 from the bible:
¹⁷Though the fig tree does not blossom and there is no fruit on the vines, [though] the product of the olive fails and the fields yield no food, though the flock is cut off from the fold and there are no cattle in the stalls,

¹⁸Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will exult in the [victorious] God of my salvation!^(E)

¹⁹The Lord God is my Strength, my personal bravery, and my invincible army; He makes my feet like hinds' feet and will make me to walk [not to stand still in terror, but to walk] and make [spiritual] progress upon my high places [of trouble, suffering, or responsibility]! For the Chief Musician; with my stringed instruments.

She shared in layman's term : "Though I lose my job and grocery prices are going through the roof, though my son is so hard to control that I feel like I'm gonna go crazy, though I can't get my husband out of the lounge chair and TV or though I can't get my wife to clean the house ... YET I WILL REJOICE!"

It was a great encouragement to me and the best medication before all of us went to bed.

Yes...all the problems we will face and I have to learn that no matter what, I want to learn to rejoice in the Lord and God the Lord is my strength.

I leave the song here for you to be encouraged: MY PEACE

CAN'T SLEEP

2010-09-01T20:29:00.000+08:00

It's happening again. For 2 straight nights Jonathan just couldn't sleep well. Even if he does go to sleep, he will wake up and start calling me. by the time he gets the proper deep sleep it would already 3.30am.

I'm hoping that today, since he didn't take his nap that he will sleep well tonight.

LACTOSE INTOLERANCE

2010-08-30T10:30:00.002+08:00

I'm beginning to suspect that Jonathan might be lactose intolerant.

Yesterday, I gave him just one scoop of his Karihome goat milk and he ended up with lots of secretion and retching from afternoon, the whole 10 hours, stopping only at around 2am.

This is the 2nd time it has happened. The first just last week but I caught that on time.

I'm not sure myself too because 3 hours after that one feed, I gave him the Isomil. So could it be that I shouldn't mix feedings?

I googled and found this:

What is lactose intolerance?

Lactose intolerance is the inability or insufficient ability to digest lactose, a sugar found in milk and milk products. Lactose intolerance is caused by a deficiency of the enzyme lactase, which is produced by the cells lining the small intestine. Lactase breaks down lactose into two simpler forms of sugar called glucose and galactose, which are then absorbed into the bloodstream.

What causes lactose intolerance?

The cause of lactose intolerance is best explained by describing how a person develops lactase deficiency.

Primary lactase deficiency develops over time and begins after about age 2 when the body begins to produce less lactase. Most children who have lactase deficiency do not experience symptoms of lactose intolerance until late adolescence or adulthood.

Researchers have identified a possible genetic link to primary lactase deficiency. Some people inherit a gene from their parents that makes it likely they will develop primary lactase deficiency. This discovery may be useful in developing future genetic tests to identify people at risk for lactose intolerance.

Secondary lactase deficiency results from injury to the small intestine that occurs with severe diarrheal illness, celiac disease, Crohn’s disease, or chemotherapy. This type of lactase deficiency can occur at any age but is more common in infancy.

What are the symptoms of lactose intolerance?

People with lactose intolerance may feel uncomfortable 30 minutes to 2 hours after consuming milk and milk products. Symptoms range from mild to severe, based on the amount of lactose consumed and the amount a person can tolerate.

Common symptoms include

abdominal pain
abdominal bloating
gas
diarrhea
nausea

The reason why I suspect is because of the highlighted sentence above. although Jonathan didn't have alot of diarrhea episodes, he did have quite a few of vomiting incidents.

There are 2 tests. One is to consume lactose beverage and test with the breathe for hydrogen and the other is to use the stools of the child. Yesterday I tried to send his stool for testing but was told the lab is closed on Sunday and we cannot keep stools overnight.

Checked with GP and he said stool tests are very expensive. The other way is through blood test. But he said to let Jonathan continue with the soy milk for another few months first.

PAY ATTENTION PLEASE!

2010-08-29T14:49:00.000+08:00

What does Jonathan do when he wants me to pay attention to him or whenever I leave him alone for a while?

This ....

His first target is the packet of tissues that lies within reach. He will pull and pull, the fan will blow the tissues all over house and eventually the whole stack will break free from the plastic packaging (seen here under his knee):

And when the tissues are no longer helping him to get any attention from me, he will reach out and pull something else. Sometimes he can even right into the box of Jonathan's button supplies and start pulling things out. As you can see...he was reaching for the bag of diapers:

So he's finally got my attention. When I ask why does he pull the tissue, he will grab a few pieces in his right hand and wipe his mouth with them.

My boy...so smart...LOL!

MARTHA STEWART FRINGE SCISSORS

2010-08-28T01:23:00.000+08:00

I've just ordered this Martha Stewart Fringe Scissors from Valerie's SCRAP-n-CROP.com! I just had to have it even though I don't know when I'm going to use it. haha! It's just too unique for me to not buy it. But I know I can share it with my sister Leanne! It's limited in stock. So I hope I can get it :)

SCRAP-n-CROP always has the best price ever! Thanks Val!

DESIGNS FOR TSHIRTS

2010-08-27T01:53:00.001+08:00

Despite what went on, I'm thankful to God that He helped me come up with designs for requests:

This was designed for a physio therapist from USA. Jonathan's PT had asked me to create something as a gift for 2 therapists who were here to trained the PTs in Singapore. I googled about PT and found this statement "The Law Of Physical Therapy" and decided to use the initials of the course "NDT" which actually means Neuro-Developmental Treatment. Colors used: silver (silhouette) / red (law of PT) / royal blue (initials NDT) / light blue (words)

My sister wanted a shirt for a student she taught in kindergarten 2 years ago and who will pay her a visit every year on Teacher's Day. His birthday was coming and she wanted to give him a shirt. His name is M.J. So I created a few designs using his initials including this smiley.

Since my sister liked 2 of what I designed, I gave her the smiley for the front and the other design (enlarged) for the design on the back of the shirt. Colors used: silver (smiley face and MJ) / orange (full name) / red (star)

This is the last design I did for H's niece who has just took up tap dancing. Front :

For the back, I found this tap shoes clipart and also found the phrase when I googled for quotations for tap dancing. The phrase is supposed to be "tap shoes make the best noise ever!" But I changed "noise" to "sound". The front of the shirt is actually violet but it looks white here. Colors used: violet (front) / fuchsia pink (tap dancer) / ice blue (tap shoes) / white (phrase)

ANXIOUS WEEK

2010-08-27T01:31:00.000+08:00

Jonathan threw up blood on last Tuesday (17th August).

It all started after we got home from his dental appointment. The heavy traffic on Tuesday (17 August) afternoon after the appointment at 4pm didn't help. Jonathan have been having issues regarding long journeys lately. Although he didn't show any signs while we took the longer route back home. But by afternoon, the symptoms started showing.

I should have given him some medication before we left home that afternoon. but I thought that since he has been well, there was no need. Wrong!

First slowly then in full force. By evening, I saw traces of dark red puke. I thought it was the medication that I gave him earlier. Towards 10pm, puke became darker and the vomiting wouldn't stop. Even when I fed him 10ml water, everything came out. I got worried. Called my GP that was supposed to close at 11pm but nobody answered the phone. Got Harith to run to the clinic but the doors were locked even though there were patients inside.

I debated and decided "never mind". He should stop vomiting around 12midnight - 1am like he usually does.
It didn't stop and when he threw up another time, the towel had quite a big patch of dark red patch.

We were at KK at 2am. Oxygen level 98% even though he looked pale. ME took his blood for test that came back ok. He didn't order any scan or xray (and I didn't even remember to request), asked questions if Jonathan fell or anyone sick at home, all negative. Then said Jonathan will have to stay the night for observation. That was it.

Jonathan threw up another time before we got admitted and moved to the ward. But he stopped retching after that and only once at 5am on Wednesday morning.

Sleep was on and off for him. The parents of the child in the next bed who was admitted at 5am was talking at the top of their voices! I forced myself awake because Jonathan was on a normal bed and like the last time he was admitted, I was afraid he would push himself off the bed.

Harith wanted to stay and help me watch Jonathan while we take turns to rest. But forgetful me didn't bring along his feeding tube. So he went home at 4.30am and return at 7am with all his feed.

No fluid was given to Jonathan during the night. Only the next morning at around 10am after the senior doctor came to ask questions. All these while, I was told that there's no need for anti-vomit medication. By then, Jonathan had totally stopped retching.

Doctor said that there was a possibility that while he was retching hard, a membrane or lining around the throat area or feeding tract may have ruptured causing the bleeding. There was no traces of blood in his saliva when he drooled.

No extra tests done. They administered a medication to reduce the acid in the stomach through the IV.

Towards the afternoon, I felt that Jonathan was much better and asked if we could be discharged. Another doctor's round was at 3pm. I requested for discharge. They wanted him to stay another night for observation when we start feeding. But I wasn't ready to give Jonathan any milk yet. I didn't want to upset his stomach.

Doctor in attendance told me she would consult the senior doctor. We waited for another 2 hours. It was almost 5pm when she came back with a form and said that if I still wish to be discharged, it will be AT OWN RISK (AOR). I had to sign the form to release them from any responsibility should anything happened when we got home.

I signed it. What the heck!

The journey back home was one of the worst I had ever taken. The traffic was extremely heavy everywhere! I have now developed a phobia of travelling long distances with Jonathan. I kept watching him, kept praying. Thankfully, he was ok. But he hadn't eaten (except for the IV water drip) for 2 days so I had to rush home to make the porridge water.

On Wednesday night, 3 of us were so tired that we slept at 11.30pm. But I was emotionally disturbed. I kept thinking about the AOR form that I signed. Did I make the right decision? Was I wrong to bring Jonathan home? What happened if something serious occurred? I cried buckets while everyone was sleeping that night. But to see him at home resting and getting better each day, I was beginning to feel that I made the right decisions.

I felt that the experience at KK in Ward 31 wasn't as good as I had on previous occasions. The nurses were attentive and nice. But unfortunately, I could not feel that with the doctors. I guess there were too many patients. Although as a mother, I should have asked more questions, but sometimes I'm just so darn stressed out to even think and I was hoping they could give me more suggestions as to what could be done to prevent these episodes when I told them that this was not the first time Jonathan vomited while travelling long distances. The only thing they told me was to start small feeds first and gradually increase. This I already know. I also noticed that if I talked to much, the kind of look they gave me seemed to say "ok enough."
Finally when I signed the discharged form, she left and went on her duty. They had washed their hands.

No wonder some of my friends left KK to go to NUH.

ok.

He's lost weight but at least now he's better.

Till today, both of us are still lethargic. I hate hospital stays. If not for him retching blood, I would have stayed home and brought him to the GP the next day. I still have to figure out what's causing him to be like this. He's not decided not to go out long distance.

*******************************************

On the dental note: Further to his teething issue (HERE) that got me worried, turned out there was nothing to worry about. He's got teeth growing out of the gum above the normal teeth but doctor Toh said it was ok. Counted his teeth successfully as he was quite relaxed this time around.

*******************************************

On Monday (30th Aug) I'll be meeting his teacher, Principal and the social worker regarding Jonathan's school issues. Hope we can work something out.

SCRAPBOOK TSHIRTS ON SALE

2010-08-15T01:57:00.001+08:00

I decided to put these because I get more traffic here:

The bigger shirts have been sold. So I have these few left. Don't mind the pictures. They were taken in dim light:

"WHEN CROP.PORTUNITY KNOWS"

Cotton Round Neck Shirt

Sizes

1 pc M (Ash Grey) - 40"W, 29" Length

1 pc XXS (White) - 34"W, 26" Length

1 pc S (White) - 38"W, 28" Length

Usual Price: $16

NOW: $12

"I JUST LOVE SCRAPBOOKING"

Cotton Round Neck Shirt (Ash Grey only)

Size

1 pc M - 40"W, 29" Length

Usual Price: $18

NOW: $13

"S.A.H.M (SCRAPBOOK - AT - HOME - MUM)"

Cotton Round Neck Shirt (White only)

Size

1 pc S - 38"W, 28" Length

Usual Price: $16

NOW: $12

"I HEART SCRAPBOOKING" (words in silver)

Cotton Round Neck Shirt

(The lines below the words are not on the actual shirt)

Size

1 pc S (Black) - 38"W, 28" Length

Usual Price: $16

NOW: $12

PRICE INCLUDE 7% GST.

Customer to bear postage charges. Transfer to Singapore Bank account only.
Purchase Non-Exchangeable and Non-Refundable.

EMAIL ME if you want any of these shirts. thanks!

SCRAPBOOK TSHIRTS

2010-08-09T02:10:00.001+08:00

I'm selling off some scrapbooking t-shirts at a discounted price. They are brand new, like this one:

Will be posting the sizes and pictures after National Day week. If you want a shirt like this or knows anyone who might like to have one, wait for my next post and email me.

Here's wishing Singapore Happy Birthday! This year, my mum is sharing the same birthday. I LOVE YOU MUM!!!

T.T.T.

2010-08-05T02:43:00.000+08:00

His gums are tender because there are teeth dropping and new teeth growing, all at the same time.

He has been drooling alot all because of the teeth. He cringes when I brush his teeth.

I faxed this picture to his paediatric dentist a few days ago because I was really concerned that one of the teeth that is coming out is pushing against another tooth and has caused that tooth to become loose and shaky. Besides, he's appointment is supposed to be in October.
(It's black and white cos I didn't want it to be too graphic)

The new tooth on the right is coming out but the baby tooth is still intact and pushing against the tooth on the left. At the same time, it's causing his gum to be tender and red.

It's hard to get an appointment fixed but the appointment desk was able to fix another appointment to 17 August.

Spoke to Dr Toh yesterday. She said there's nothing to worry about. So we can wait till the 17th.

But I'm not taking it lightly. So I've been giving him panadol (only at night before he sleeps) to make him comfortable. Jonathan said it doesn't hurt. But when I see the redness, I'm stressed.

Today, I found a new tooth emerging from the last tooth that dropped. Then to my surprise, I saw a wisdom tooth on the upper jaw!

No wonder he's been drooling and to compensate the uncomfortable feeling, he's been pressing his mouth against the mat that he's lying on.

I hope this Tender Teeth Times will go quickly!

BANDANA a.k.a HEAD SCARF

2010-08-03T15:04:00.000+08:00

My friend Nicole, the great charity supporter, has just shaved her head again for a good cause. The HAIR FOR HOPE is an event which invites members of the public to shave their heads to show their support for children with cancer.

So I got her a black triangle head scarf (bandana to her) and got her to give me a phrase to print. Printed the words "SOUR AS EAGLE" with a silhouette of an eagle in between the words. See picture below, the blue in words ... although not so clear here.

So does look good in it :)

2 EXPERIMENTS

2010-07-27T15:02:00.000+08:00

Experiment #1.

I've mentioned earlier that I will experiment with "school" again and it did.

Since yesterday, I told him we have to go to school. Even if it's just for therapy.

Results ... slept really late, about 1.30am. Woke up at 5.30am and refused to go back to sleep until I told him that he can stay at home. I gave in quickly because I didn't want to have him repeatedly waking up in the morning like the last time (posted HERE).

I have goodwill people telling me that if I keep this up, he will not be going out and that he will have an upper hand over me. I feel lousy when people say that. It's as if I cannot discipline Jonathan.

He's a smart boy. If he knows I'm forcing him to go, he will resort to all ways just to prevent it from happening so much so that now his into "since I'm not going to school, I might as well don't go out at all".

So it's been like this. Sometimes he stays home for a straight 3 days and then he will willingly step out of the house for a half hour stroll or have dinner with us at the foodcourt @ the market.

And...

This morning, because I needed to go to the market to buy something, he refused to sit on his buggy, straightening his body and started crying. I hate it when he cries. The secretion will start building up and the throat becomes noisy for the rest of the day.

Physically, it's really strenuous to carry him whenever he straightens his body. I've almost hurt myself trying to prevent him from hurting himself. Moreover, my left arm that cracked 10 years ago is now not as strong as it used to be.

So sue me la for not making him go to school. I'm really tired of this.

EXPERIMENT #2:

Since he didn't want to go out today, we decided it's time for a long awaited hair cut.

I've never cut Jonathan's hair. It's always Harith who does it. Today Jonathan refused to have his hair cut. Refused to let me carry him to the bathroom. But after much struggle, I picked up him in one big scoop and carried him to the bathroom.

So I cut with much difficulty. The hair looks neat now, albeit a little messy cut but still I'm happy with the results.

No photos cos he's lying down. Can't see much while he's on the mat.

But at least I'm glad I'm not sitting on the chair holding him up, which can be quite tiring.

PEOPLE FIRST: EMPOWERING PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

2010-07-25T14:51:00.000+08:00

For the last 13 years, Jonathan has been featured twice on television. One for the President's Start Charity where funds are raised through a television program and distributed to more than 40 charities selected by the President of Singapore.

the other was a documentary by a group of university students who had a final year project to complete and decided to use this opportunity to raise awareness about children with special needs in Singapore.

You can watch the documentary HERE.

MORGAN'S WONDERLAND, together with BLOGGERS UNITE have come together to encourage bloggers to share their experiences on empowering people with disabilities.

I'm glad I could share my experiences on being Jonathan's caregiver. It's a joy to see university students doing the early intervention courses telling me that they have learned alot with my sharing.

I hope more awareness will be reached throughout the world. More so, I'm very thankful that there are places like Morgan's Wonderland where many children and adults with special needs can have a place to have fun and enjoy rides where other theme parks don't offer.

2 MINUTES

2010-07-17T16:42:00.000+08:00

I think I have already posted this photo (that was taken early this year) but I'm not sure if I did heh heh. Anyway, I know Jonathan loves to stand. Especially so whenever we come home from a stroll or somewhere, he will always like me to carry him upright from the buggy. Then we will end up standing like the picture above.

Last night, I stood with him in the same manner, doing weight bearing and allow his weight down to this feet. I sang some of his favourite songs and wala! He stood with me for 2 minutes.

And of course after that, my back couldn't take it anymore. But at least we achieved "something".

BIRTHDAY CARDS DONE ... THANKFULLY!

2010-07-14T23:41:00.000+08:00

I still owed my friend 2 more birthday cards that I promised to give her in June. But we didn't get to meet.

Thank God she reminded a few days ago because their birthdays are in August and September! Man...I'm not good at prioritizing!

So here are the cards I finished. I used my Pazzles Inspiration Creative Cutter. I'm only featuring 2 because the third one is for my friend whose birthday is in November and when I mailed the cards to her today, I sealed her card and marked on the envelope (can't remember exactly what I wrote hee hee) : "TO BE OPENED BY CELL GROUP MEMBERS WHEN THEY SIGN/WRITE ON THE CARD FOR MABEL'S BIRTHDAY. MABEL IS NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE THE CARD UNTIL NOVEMBER." haahaha (Sorry Mabel).

In the Pazzles work page, I put a small letter E below another circle and weld them together at the top creating this effect. So the top is joined.

Notice that the letters are double-layered. The first set in purple are original size. Through Pazzles, I could create another path around the original sized letters to make another set letters 0.03cm larger. Then I split the text and cut them out separately, the larger letters I used grey cardstock. Pasted them together and they have the layered effect. I used sticky foam to give make them look 3-D.
Note: If you manually enlarge the letters, they don't fit perfectly.

I always have a hard time matching papers. This last card took me a while to decide what to use.

The name ESTHER was cut out from the Happy Birthday patterned paper. But it felt "empty" even with the backing insert. So I decided to cut out the name again on the yellow textured cardstock and inserted them into the cut out words. The orange wavy trimming is from Doodlebugs.

This is what I did to "insert" the yellow ESTHER into the cut out words. Actually pasted them onto the insert.

Feeling "empty" again, I decided to cut out some "gifts" from another pattern paper and pasted them inside the card.

Note: All the pattern papers and single color cardstock used here are either from SEI or American Craft.

I'm actually quite happy with the outcome. The Pazzles have some functions that are quite similar to the Adobe Illustrator and with Pazzles, I learned to to adopt the same method of some of the functions into my Illustrator work and vice versa.

Come November then I'll show you what I did for Mabel's card.

Thanks for dropping by!

NEW CURTAINS FOR JONATHAN'S ROOM

2010-07-10T13:28:00.001+08:00

I must admit, I'm not a "sewing" person. My 2nd sister, came back for a visit from USA and during that one week she was here (last week of June), she offered to sew Jonathan a new set of curtains.

And so said my ta jie to me:"It's either you do it now, or you have to pay for a new set or wait for another 2 years for er jie to come back." haahaha

I took the measurements, told her how many pleats and still got it wrong..haha. You can see why at the end of this post.

We went to Joo Chia Complex to buy the curtain materials. Alot of materials to choose from but I just couldn't find anything suitable for young teens until I saw this.

Well...it's more for a kid but doesn't matter. I would love to have this if I had my own room...haha. Cost of material (for approx 7 yards) SGD30. Heavy cotton/canvas type.

My 2nd sister is the one who actually sews curtains. She did the measuring and cutting and on request from my ta jie (1st sister), she let my ta jie sew the curtains.

Good job on the workmanship.

The seamstress my er jie (right) and her apprentice ta jie (left)

One side up

Both sides now

You can see why I said I'm not good at sewing. I think each side should have 2 more pleats. So instead of 15 pleats, I told my sister 13 pleats. But it doesn't matter. Still covers the whole window.

And for the record, they did the job in 4 hours or less! Amazing!

Thanks Aunty Arina and Aunty Emmy!

MUSIC TIME

2010-07-09T20:45:00.000+08:00

I was in the mood to sing today. Harith was in the mood to play his violin today (much to my delight!!!! I always love it when he plays).

When Harith went to the market to get us some breakfast (didn't feel like eating bread ... heh heh), I took out the uke to sing some songs. And guess what ... the prince scooted away! hahaha.

Anyway, I had to go buy my paper supplies so after returning home, Harith started playing songs on the violin and for half to one hour, both Jonathan and I were enjoying the music coming out of the music room.

Then we did a duet. And the prince wanted in on the action.

Here ... we are getting ready to bow...

But I can't play the violin so it was just squeaky sound. It's hard to hold his hand and the violin on the left. But I did rest the violin on Jonathan's shoulder just to give him a feel.

Then, we tried the uke.

As you can see, he was smiling more while playing the violin. Maybe it was strumming the uke with his fingers that he stopped smiling. uh oh..pain pain... haha. Harith said cos he didn't have to do much work bowing. haha

Obviously he chose the violin as the preferred musical instrument :)

MODELS FOR MY SHIRTS

2010-07-08T16:46:00.000+08:00

I have the pleasure of reading Rachel's journal about the shirts I printed for her children HERE.

So funny...but I'm just so so happy that Aaron, Maddison and Samuel (apart from his poo-poo situation) modelled for me.

For the closeup of the shirts, CLICK HERE.

Thanks Rachel!!!

UNDER HOUSE DETENTION

2010-07-08T13:34:00.001+08:00

I'm under house detention.

This comes whenever I mention "SCHOOL".

Whether any conversation is related to Jonathan or not, as long as the word "SCHOOL" is mentioned, it sets off an alarm and then I'm placed under arrest.

I.E. No going out. Well...I can still go but one of us has to stay home with the prince and most of the time it will be moi.

He was all ok this morning to go downstairs for a walk until my girlfriend called. We talked about sending our children to school and the sensitive-ear-detective heard it and there!

I'm being "punished" haha. It was the same during that week of disturbed sleep. He just refuses to go out even for a stroll.

But come to think of it, he's actually putting himself under house detention! LOL!

Well...as a compensation, Jonathan slept well again last night, of which I'm thankful for. We woke up almost 12 noon today. It's funny when you have the whole week of waking hours in the night, you take the same amount of time or sometimes longer to recover from that.

At least I could spend some time with Harith watching football this morning (Germany vs Spain). A boring game actually haha.

At least one of us can do errands :)

So it's official ... "SCHOOL" is not allowed to be spoken at home.....

LAST NIGHT WAS BETTER

2010-07-07T11:44:00.000+08:00

I'm experimenting ... I'm guessing if what my gut feeling says is right. So I'm experimenting.

Last night before Jonathan went to sleep, I told him. "Sleep well. Tomorrow you will be staying home. We are not going anywhere. Daddy is working." No mention of the word "school".

He slept. So did I (after days of disturbed sleep. I was getting physically drained). Not even bothering to get up to watch the semi-finals between the Netherlands and Uruguay (not that I really bothered at all ... haha).

Harith woke me up ask if I wanted to leave the computer on. That was around 4am. Groggily I got up, turned everything off, he helped me. Went to the loo and I went back to sleep.

All these done while our prince was sleeping. I didn't even want to change his diaper, fearing he will wake up and not go back to sleep!

But sleep he did. At 6am I woke up to check on him and changed his diaper. He woke up, looked around and after changing, went back to sleep.

Woke up at 10.30am.

It was good. Now the gut feeling is almost confirmed. But I still want to experiment just to be doubly sure.

Just one more night of good sleep and then I'll try it again.

ALSEEP ... AWAKE ... ASLEEP ... AWAKE ... ALSEEP

2010-07-07T01:55:00.000+08:00

For the past one week, Jonathan's sleeping pattern changed. A couple of days after the bird incident whereby he kept waking up at 6am, this time around, he wakes up at 3 or 4 am. Then proceed to ask for milk, staying up for another half to one hour and return to sleep only to wake up at around 6am and finally going back to sleep around 7am. Waking only at 11am.

The most tiring one was just 2 nights ago. He woke up at 4.30am and didn't go back to sleep until 7am.

That night, it just so happened that I couldn't sleep. I chose to watch Whose Line Is It Anyway on Youtube and when I was finally going to dose off, Jonathan woke up. I remembered checking my mobile that it was almost 4.30am. And that was it for me. Surprisingly, I was fully awake and alert. I should thank God for giving me strength to stay up with Jonathan. He finally went back to sleep around 7am and both of us didn't wake up till 11am.

What does he do during those waking hours? He will just look around his room, as if finding something. He will grunt a little or just asks me to carry him in a hugging manner while he burrows under my arms (that's his favourite position).

Physically, both of us are tired. I don't know what caused this change of sleeping pattern. But my gut feeling is it's about school. I've been telling him since the week before school started that he has to go back to school. Sometimes when he gets me all mad, I will "threaten" him that he should just go to school and not spend his hours watching television at home.

Wrong move? I'm not sure. But that probably got to him. He would look at me with pleading eyes and once, even had tears coming out. I've journaled about this countless times (one such post HERE).

So to see if school is reason why he's been waking up in the wee hours of the night, before he slept, I told him that we will be staying home tomorrow. Nothing mention about the word "school".

Will see how tonight goes and I will journal about it tomorrow.

CARD MADE USING PAZZLES CREATIVE CUTTER

2010-07-05T16:41:00.002+08:00

Further to my PAZZLE post HERE, this is the card that was totally made using the Pazzle Inspiration. It's to accompany the gift that my niece is giving to her friend. This morning, it left for USA with the tshirts that I printed HERE.

Used Bazzill dark green cardstock and DCWV glitter pattern paper and organza ribbons. That's all!

The Pazzle did all the cutting for me. All I need to do was draw 2 circles in the software, link one end and weld (merge/join) the ends so they become linked and come out like this:

Then I did the fonts and mirrored one of the S-ses and cut it out on the green cardstock. For the name SOPHIA, I used the glitter pattern paper.

Now...I don't have to buy alpha stickers anymore. I can use whatever font I want that is "cuttable".

Soon I will explore into more difficult details to make my remaining birthday cards and 5 bookmarks!

The only drawback is that the Pazzle makes squishy noises when cutting that when I work near Jonathan, he keeps turning to look where the sound is coming from. It can be quite loud sometimes...haha

But, so far, i still love the machine!

SHIRTS IN JUNE

2010-07-05T03:30:00.001+08:00

Remember this post and the partially hidden romper that I printed for a friend?

I'm happy that Rachel has gotten them from Valerie...at last! I really hope her kids can wear them.

Here's what I did for them:

Rachel had just given birth to a son, Samuel. I couldn't resist adding the last sentence haha.

I couldn't print a romper for Samuel and leave his brother and sister out.

And while Valerie was here in Singapore, I decided to give her kids a young volunteer tshirts:

While my sister and her family were still vacationing here in June; my niece, Samantha, wanted a I HEART SINGAPORE shirt. They saw one at Chinatown but the design was I HEART SG. And of course each time she wears that shirt, she will have to answer this question : "What is SG?" haha. They ended up not buying it.

So who else to print one for Samantha but her Auntie Bie! haha.

And while I was in the I HEART SINGAPORE mood, I printed some coasters for Sally to bring home. I think I'll also print some for my other sister, Arina, who lives in Memphis (should have done that while she was here for the week...)

And just last week, got an email from Sally to help design something for Samantha's best friend who was leaving Knoxville for Chicago.

This is what I came up with and printed for her:

I found the phrase about the stars and it was really appropriate. It's sad that her best friend is leaving but I hope she'll like this design. I also put the "SS" on the front as crest.

I've made a card to accompany the gift. It was made using the Pazzle Inspiration Creative Cutter. I'm enjoying the machine and the design process. Will journal about it another day.

Thanks for dropping by :)

Reflect & Relate ...

JANUARY

ANG POW 2012 (RED PACKETS FOR CHINESE NEW YEAR)

SKY PARK @ MARINA BAY SANDS 天空花园

REFLECTIONS

MARINA BAY SANDS 30 DECEMBER 2011

RASH DISAPPEARING

ORCHARD ADVENTURE - 21st to 22nd DECEMBER 2011

DESIGNS FOR SALE

A TSHIRT FOR A GOOD FRIEND

I'M BACK :)

IT'S BEEN ALMOST A MONTH

I DON'T UNDERSTAND

VIRAL RASH...

DIET REVIEW PLUS A FEW QUESTIONS ANSWERED

BARIUM FLUOROSCOPY TEST

GASTRO APPOINTMENT

SLEEP PATTERNS

JONATHAN CRIED TODAY

COMPLETED AND COURIERED!

I'M SO PROUD OF JONATHAN

SAVINGS FOR MOMMIES OF CHILDREN WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

MAY HAVE TO POSTPONE

WHAT HAS JONATHAN BEEN UP TO?

DENTAL CLEANING/EXTRACTION BROUGHT FORWARD

SHORT CONVERSATION BETWEEN FATHER AND SON

WOODEN COASTERS

DENTAL CHECK UP 1 JULY 2011

FATHER'S DAY GIFT FROM JONATHAN

3RD DAY - SO FAR SO GOOD

NUTRITION ... IS HE GETTING ENOUGH?

ACID REFLUX

IT'S HERE AGAIN!

IT COMES SUDDENLY

BOOKMARKS & BIRTHDAY CARD

AGAIN

AFO VERSUS SMO = AFO FITTED

NEURO APPOINTMENT

17 YEARS OLD

WHEN YOU'RE ON MEDICATION

SHORT SESSIONS WITH JONATHAN

RIBBONS AND SUCH

CHEST PHYSIO

DESIGNS

GOOD NIGHT

OUT OF SCHOOL

OF BEING ILL AND MEDICATED

DOES WEATHER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH FLU?

OF BEACH AND BOOKLETS

FOURTEEN

HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

CUSTOMIZED NAME CARD BOX

BIRTHDAY BOOKLETS

FROM 2010 TO 2011

A CHRISTMAS PRESENT FOR HIS DADDY

HANDMADE .. ESPECIALLY FOR JONATHAN

BUSY, BUSY, BUSY

JONATHAN'S MORNING WORSHIP

FEELING SICK

If ever you may have a big problem, don't say, 'God I have a big problem!',but instead; 'Hey Problem, I have a big God and everything will be okay! by Jinky

TAN SISTERS

PILLOW CASES

NOT ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH

WHEN YOU FEEL OVERWHELMED

RANDOM

BIRTHDAY CAME AND WENT

HE IS BRAVER THAN I AM

WHILE THERE ... AT THE FUNERAL WAKE ...

IN MEMORY OF GOH POH GEOK

IDEAL WEIGHT

CHILDREN'S DAY GIFTS COMPLETED

SELLING KARIHOME WHOLE GOAT MILK

CHILDREN'S DAY GIFTS

WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENIN'?

CASE CONFERENCE

I'VE MADE THE DECISION

SHOULD I WITHDRAW?

FRINGE SCISSORS

FEEDING BETTER

PEACE AND REJOICE

If ever you may have a big problem, don't say, 'God I have a big problem!',
but instead; 'Hey Problem, I have a big God and everything will be
okay! by Jinky