Friday, April 30, 2010

May Day.. May Day...

Yes, May is approaching fast.. make sure you do your income tax declarations before time runs out. I just did mine yesterday at 5am, on my way out of the house to the airport for my regular day trip to Kuantan.. I'm quite surprised that my "cukai terlebih bayar" is almost equivalent to one month's basic salary!! Can't wait to get the cheque from LHDN. It would feel like getting a bonus :) I'm thinking of buying a new DSLR camera if I get it.. My dream camera is the NIKON D90.. I had a chance to play around with it while I was offshore a few weeks ago.. and I fell in love with it instantly... (I promise I'll do an entry on my offshore trip sometime soon)..
With 1st of May being the famous Labor Day, and a Saturday, my company has given us all Friday off (tomorrow) in lieu of the the public holiday on Saturday. Hooray!!!


HOMEDEC expo started today at the KL Convention Center but this year gonna give it a miss cause I've been going to too many home expos for the past 2 years. Instead I'm gonna stay home and paint our fence and gate.. Norman started it already on our side fence, but have stopped for some time (enough time to allow our next door neighbour to start and finish off all their fence and gate).. I hope the weather will be good tomorrow..


So the plan is to wake up and send Naufal to his playschool, jog afew rounds at the Kelana Jaya park, then come back home to paint the gate, stop by at mum's house for lunch, go to IKEA (buy a table for Naufal cause he loves drawing and coloring nowadays), to SSF (to buy flowers and other indoor decorations), stop by at the car dealer to drop of some documents and then pick up Naufal from playschool...
Big plans for a fine Friday, let's see how much will be accomplished... hahah

Sunday, April 25, 2010

Quarantine No More..

What a great feeling :) Naufal is now back to his old cheeky ways and we are no longer under quarantine!! Just in time for a double birthday celebration :)

Other than Nora's birthday on the 20th, we also have another April baby in the family. My other sister Husna's birthday is on the 23rd. She drove all the way from Kerteh to enjoy the weekend with us.

So on Saturday we all drove to Equatorial Hotel in Bangi for some dim sum at the Golden Phoenix restaurant..
Norman and Naufal wearing a matching father and son Manchester United football jersey. Naufal is wearing the full kit, socks and all..


Norman, me, Aisyah and my mum.. waiting patiently for our lunch.. (we skipped breakfast for this big meal..)

Naufal and Sofea reunited again.. these two cousins greatly misses each other as they haven't met each other in almost 2 weeks..

Look at how excited Naufal is...

I really like this picture, reminds me of Beckam and Posh Spice in a candid shot by the papparazis... hahha

This orange juice is sour mummy... My brother and his family..

My parents with the two birthday girls.. Husna on the left and Nora on the right.

Me and my family.. the triple N's..

The meal was quite good (sorry no pictures of the food, everyone was too hungry and dug in as soon as anything was placed on the table), and the price is not bad too.. Although I'm much more familiar with the dim sum at Mandarine Oriental, which I would rate higher than this place.

Welcoming a new addition the family..

Early last month, my loving husband got a new job. However, the location of his new office has the worst parking system available. Not only is it difficult to get a parking spot, the charges to park your car is horrendously high. Traffic heading to and from his office is as bad as it gets, so he decided to ride a motorbike. He already has one that his brother is borrowing, so on the day before he starts his new job, his brother sent the bike back to him. It is an old bike from his single days and is prone to breakdowns.. so he decided to buy a new bike.

After much research, he decided on the model that he liked and he started to tender his number plate. The regular 2 digit number that he was aiming at is much much more expensive for a KL number plate in comparison to the Melaka registration number. He checked with his friends who are working with JPJ, and other states have also become expensive. So he decided to tender for he number below... the motorbike was just made available to us on Thursday. Naufal is also overjoyed at the new addition to our family. So I made sure that Norman gets a SIRIM approved toddler's helmet..
Just look at how excited he looks.. Me on the other hand is not a motorbike gal. Have limited experience on a bike (I think maybe 3 times only in my whole lifetime, if you ask me all bikes are the same), so I have no plans to get on a bike. Naufal's bike riding is also limited to the Subang Galaxy residential area only.Hold on tight.. keep your hands and feet in he vehicle at all time..
Bye ibu.. we'll be back in a jiffy :)

What is it with men and their machines? My husband refuses to let go of the old motorbike. Sentimental value he says.. what are we going to do with 2 motorbikes? Anybody want to rent a bike?? haha....

On the same day that Norman bought his scooter, I also bought a car. We'll talk more about that when the car is in our hands in June. For now, we are in the process of tendering for the number plate. My ideal 2 digit number costs more than 2 months graduate starting basic salary!! What a big NO-NO!!

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

I could get used to this

As this week I am a stay at home mum, I wanted to do all the things that I haven't had the time to do on a weekend. One of it is to wake up early for no particular reason (usually if it is a weekend we would only wake up early if there is an early appointment). Today I wanted to make a special breakfast, and even top it off with dessert. Since yesterday was Aunty Nora's birthday, Naufal had mentioned cake a couple of times that he wanted to have some cake. Since we can't leave the house, the only way to get cake is bake it!!

So I woke up early to bake a cake.. all the ingredients are readily available, so it didn't take long to get started. My initial plan was to bake the cake for Norman to bring to work but as Norman is leaving early to beat the morning traffic and there's so way to speed up the baking process, I had to bring myself back to reality and keep some for dinner's dessert.

The oven haven't been used in along time. So I decided to bake two cakes, one of which I would send to my mother's house (via Mr. Norman)..

By the time Naufal woke up the cakes are ready and just cooling out of the oven on the cooling rack. He could smell the bakery-like smell arising from the kitchen.
He's overjoyed that he will be getting a breakfast dessert today. Lemon cake..
I pretended that it was HIS birthday and sang him a birthday song.. I guess he's expecting presents too..
No candles but he's still excited..
Nyum.. nyum.. let's eat ibu!!

Staying home with Naufal is much much more fun now that he's recovering.. After breakfast he would help me with the laundry (well most of what he folds need to be refolded), a quick shower then he would watch Play House Disney while I would sweep/vacuum the floor and prepare a little lunch for the both of us. After the meal and his medicine, I would read a book with him and he would fall asleep for his after lunch nap (maybe due to drowsiness from the cough syrup). This would give me some time to go online or clean up the rest of the house and prepare dinner.

It is really rewarding cause I would get hugs and kisses whenever he's feeling happy.. I could really get used to this :)

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA..


Ever since I could remember, my sister Nora has always been there whenever I needed a helping hand.. when Naufal was born she was initially awkward at even the thought of handling a baby, but within a few days of welcoming the baby home, I could see that she warmed up to the idea of it and had since fell in love with the little angel. So whenever I needed someone to take care of Naufal, Nora would definitely jump to the chance and never look back..

As you can imagine, she has been a great help to me in many ways. So for this year's birthday present I decided to get her a new handbag from my favourite brand... COACH!!

One of my friends in Houston is absolutely in love with shopping, so she offers to buy COACH handbags from the outlet and retail stores. Whenever there is a sale, she would snap pictures and ask her friends if they are interested to buy. So I decided to buy this bag for Nora. Before choosing which design is desired, I ask Nora to choose between a couple of designs that I liked best.. but our tastes are very different and she didn't like any of them.. so she looked at the COACH website and choose bags that she liked, the choice in color is much more subtle than what I am used to, but I guess these are the things that make us all different.. so from there I knew what her tastes were. I asked my friend to check it out in Houston and luckily it was on SALE.. I just knew it was meant to be.. I quickly placed an order, and in about 10 days the handbag arrived in my hands..

And Voila!!


HAPPY BIRTHDAY NORA!!
May there be many more happy moments to live through together.

Sorry that we couldn't be there to celebrate your birthday as we are under quarantine, we'll see you this weekend instead. If you're wondering, your little nephew Naufal is getting better, he's definitely enjoying every minute with mummy, and to tell you the truth I'm really enjoying this "stay-at-home-mummy/wife" thing too. Very relaxing, and entertaining. Anyway, good thing your present is already at mama's place, so that you can have it to enjoy on your happy day today.

I'm so glad you love your new handbag :)


Monday, April 19, 2010

A bad POSITIVE..

Wow.. I can't believe it , a month has gone by like a flash of lightning. So many things has happened, new experiences good and bad..

Let me give a quick summary of what has happened since my last entry. That same evening, when Naufal woke from his sleep, his temperature was still high and his breathing was irregular, so we took him to the same clinic that he went to the previous week. The doctor was not sure why his temperature went back up and why he was wheezing, so he referred Naufal to the hospital. We waited another 2 hours to see our regular peadritician at Sime Darby Medical Center, Subang Jaya (previously known as SJMC). By the time we met her, she checked Naufal thoroughly. he suspected lung infection, so she prescribed the nebulizer to loosen the phlegm, and warded Naufal for further tests.
Naufal looking extremely exhausted
It was a horrible feeling for us, not knowing what your only child is suffering from and seeing his small tired body wheezing away. After the nebulizer in the treatment room, Naufal started to feel hungry, which is a good sign cause he has lost his appetite for some time, so we fed him the buns that was packed.
We had to wait quite sometime for the doctor to come back to us to insert the tubes on Naufal's arms. We were then wheeled to the ward where we spent the next 3 nights.

Naufal was on the nebulizers every 3 hours, water dripped through the tubes directly into his blood streams for the next 2 days, X-rays were taken to check for fluid in his lungs, antibiotics were injected into him, and several other medicines were pumped into his system ..

Just look at his hands, both of them are taped to a board which restricts his movement so that he doesn't pull the needle from his left hand.
Tok is always around to keep Naufal cheerful. At night his aunts and uncles would also come over for a visit, often with toys, which really put a smile on his face. Thanks all..Two of Naufal's favourite nurses checking up on him periodically. He wouldn't let them leave him sometimes, so the nurses had to make an extended visit and Naufal would chat away.. charming them with his smiles.

After all the test results were out the doctor informed us that there was no lung infection, but he had Chronic Bronchitis. I googled it up (like you would at times like this) and here is what I found out about it. Chronic bronchitis is an ongoing inflammation of the airways in the lungs. The inflammation causes mucus to form in the lungs which makes it hard to get air in and out of the lungs. This can seriously affect your ability to breath and can give you a tight feeling in the chest. The main difference between bronchitis and chronic bronchitis is that chronic means it last a long time. Commonly affecting smokers, but in children it can be caused by dusts and other things. The common symptoms for chronic bronchitis are trouble breathing, tightness in the chest and coughing up mucus.

When I back to the office, everyone was asking about how my son was doing. Most were surprised when I mentioned chronic bronchitis but a few had their own share of tales to share. One had both of her daughters also suffering from it currently and another friend was a sufferer during her childhood. She mentioned that chronic bronchitis could lead to pneumonia, and she used to get attacks often as a child. In her teens, the symptoms just vanished and she no longer suffered from the illness.

Since then, Naufal has been the regular cheerful, healthy boy. Suddenly last Tuesday his school teacher called me at 5.30pm telling me that Naufal started to have fever at about 4.30 that day and they are asking me if I would allow them to start giving him medicine. As I was already 10 minits away from picking him up, I told him that I would take him home. He had some fever medicine left from his last visit to the hospital so I gave it to him and his fever seems to get better.. The next two days his temperature was still quite high and I sent him to his grandma's to recover while I am away at work. It seemed like a normal fever and coughing. But on Friday morning he started vomiting mucus while he was sleeping. So I decided to take him to the children's clinic.

It was already his 4th day sick and his temperature has rose to 39.1 degC. The coughing has paired with running nose. The doctor was going to start him on antibiotics, but at the same time he also wrote a referral note to the hospital emergency room to check for the influenza virus. I was already scared at the thought of it, but was sure that I needed to get Naufal checked just in case. So we headed to SDMC SJ again and met with the peaditrician. Naufal's high temperature and his coughing, plus his past medical record suggested possible lung infection. So again we were warded for further tests.

That same day, the nurses took a swab from Naufal's nose to test for influenza. The nurses told me that the results would be available within two hours. However after waiting more than 2 hours we still didn't get any results, so I asked the nurses to check and inform me what the outcome was. We were in great shocked to hear that the influenza A test results were POSITIVE!!!

We were moved to the quarantine room immediately and once everything was settled, I just cried and cried.. my thoughts were already at the worst case scenario.. I can't imagine life without my son. He is the apple of our eyes, our everything! Later the nurse came in and explained that although Naufal is influenza A positive, he isn't necessarily H1N1 positive. Norman calmed me down too, things might not be as bad as it sounds. We will get through this and Naufal will get better.. That night itself, Naufal's Tamiflu treatment started.

The next day, Naufal's temperature had gone down and he seems to be recovering but his cough is still quite bad. We were later told that he had a lung infection (pneumonia) based on his X-ray results. We continued praying for him..

All the weekend plans had to be cancelled, we are under quarantine during our stay in the hospital and also another week once we return. Please pray for our little boy :) insyaAllah he will be well..