Five for Friday #1

I am making use of Cat's Five for Friday editions idea. We have finally arrived at the best day of the week!

- Wake Cup

I treated myself to a Wake Cup this morning. Nothing better than standing in the traffic to be able to buy a hot cup of filter coffee! My Friday started on a great note! I love the entrepreneurship of such a good fantastic idea!

- Little Miss

Little Miss was a leeettle bit sick this week. She struggled with a runny nose, sinus and a sore throat. The throat also made her cough, but not hectic. On Wednesday morning she was crying about a headache as well, and that the school "does not allow sick children"! (True that! But we are working parents!) I decided to take her to the doctor. (Luckily we have child leave sick days at work! It really helps!) She had a throat infection, but not hectic! I usually don't encourage staying at home, because I think it is important not to loose too much at school. So she's had a couple of annoying "preaches" (she immediately shuts me down when I want to get in my bit of "Mom Wisdom") about rather going to school and not miss out on something... Thankfully she is much better now, and back at school today!

- Second Month of the Year

Star Wars Calendar from Typo

It's February already. We are looking forward to a weekend away this month, celebrating my Dad's birthday! I still feel that I did not get enough holiday during December! This will definitely help!

(How cool is this Typo calendar? It was a present to myself  in December)

-  SnapnSave

SnapnSave

I saw the SnapnSave app reviewed on Hayleys' Joys. You get cash back while shopping. I tried it this week. I am still not convinced that I am saving that much, as I have bought things I would otherwise not have bought. The trick is to only buy things you really need. I also saw that there are cheaper options on the shelves available. But I will give it a fair try. It's only the first week!
I've made R15 and R39.80 is waiting for approval from my first slip scanned.
AND I have two bottles of red rosé wine for visitors! *wry smile!* (I don't drink rosé.)
You can use my code to earn the first R10 when you sign up: Karend870

- It's the weekend

I can't wait! Hubby is going to watch some cricket. We are planning a fun walk with the Voortrekkers searching for owls.
We are going to relax!

Finally!

What are your plans?

Sick day for Little Missy

Little Missy started out today with a fever. She complained about not feeling well at all.
That's when I decided to shove that guilty feeling and to stay at home with her.

I got a very early appointment with the doctor. It is all about our polluted air and the allergies giving the little ones' these infections...

After we had fetched the medicines and got new books at the library and I had read all three in one go, she slept for a couple of hours.

Tonight she was feeling better already!

I am so glad I took the day to help her get the rest she needed!

We are nearly there...

"Please, please don't get sick. The beach holiday is around the corner!"

(We are going to sidestep winter for a bit.)

Dad went to pick her up at school, and off to the doctor....

Please, please! *Holding thumbs!*



Update from yesterday:

The doctor reckons it's the start of an upper respiratory infection, and only a viral infection at this stage. I even asked that if it is possible, that we can sidestep the antibiotics...

Guess what she did? She prescribed those antibiotics! (Even though she told me it is a viral infection.)

It feels more and more that I can't trust a doctor to make decisions for my family's health!

We are treating the fever with a bit of Panado, and did not send her to school today...


I am not going to give her the antibiotics! 
I Googled again today about antibiotics and viral infections, and the conviction is anonymous.
It does not work! It even worsens the situation!

Anybody knows of a good doctor who are more concerned about our health than just prescribing medicines?
I feels like I have wasted our time and money going to the doctor yesterday....

Initiation update - as sick as a dog!

Initiation continues unabated in the third week at university!

The poor girls are tired, tired, and tired!

I even got a message as parent from a House Committee (HC) member that the next three days are going to be more hectic because of the upcoming Rag festival on Saturday!

In the meantime the first year is as sick as a dog. She asked to be taken to the doctor yesterday, but was only taken to the pharmacy to get some medicines.
After that she had to continue taking part in all the activities until eleven last night. After which they had to make cards (?) for all the seniors...

I got worried yesterday afternoon, and tracked down the responsible Head of the Residence, a Professor.
I asked that somebody check in on her to see that she is okay.
All that he did was to phone the HC member.
The HC member told our student to sent me an sms from her own (the HCs) phone. (That really reassured me!)

I learnt after eleven last night - the first time that she could talk to me - that she was still not well...

This morning I phoned the Professor to demand that she sees a doctor today! (Yes, I am that mother!)
I said that I did not want any messages from a HC member anymore!
Apparently she's got an appointment at eleven, but she still has to take part in all activities. (I hope the doctor books her off!)

My thoughts on this:
- They are supposed to be adults now, but are treated like babies. She cannot move without informing the HC, and they have to accompany the first years.
- My daughter is very capable to decide when she needs to go and see a doctor, and she will do so when necessary.
- She is also allowed to rest when her body tells her so! (Bed rest is the best cure for sickness!)
- There is no adult supervision at the residence. My daughter does not know who the Head of Residence is and she hasn't seen him moving around. (We have heard more favourable news from other residences where the Heads are seen in the corridors.)
- The seniors are still given free reign in the residence.
- Why are there no guardians to check up on the first years? Where's the friendly "Mother"-figure at the residence?
- I have learnt that a first year got meningitis in the first week, and landed up in hospital. There is a stomach bug going around, and the doctor's waiting rooms are filled up!
- A student died there with this initiation process! There is not enough control for the safety of the students!
- They have to spent hours and hours in the sun until Saturday.
- I am listening to a lot of debates around the issue of initiation (orientation), and it still seems that there are a pervasive psyche in our society that says it is necessary to teach respect! I'm sorry! Respect is earned!
- People are saying that my son had this or that experience, or I had a terrible experience, but they still think it is  a necessary activity! I don't think it teaches you anything, and much less respect!
- It is still INITIATION being practised!

I really feel that my daughter is taken care of! NOT!

In the meantime I had to type up a CV for another residence which seems to treat the students more humanely... (Hold thumbs!)

Related posts:
Have we failed our children? - initiation
Orientation seems a lot like initiation 

Sick with a sick toddler

Being sick, with a sick toddler, is not a recipe for bed rest when staying at home. 

No, it makes you wish that you have gone to work very early in the morning already!

But the thought of another night of both of us taking turns to cough, and Hubby having to run around between two beds is not something you are looking forward to in a great way! 

Getting the Toddler dressed, trying to get her to eat something before we go, and finally giving up with a banana packed in the bag... Just to get out of the door!

And all you wanted to do was stay in bed in a foetal position for the rest of the day...

Forget it when you have a toddler!

Taking us both to the doctor, getting the medicines at the pharmacy, and coming back home takes a huge chunk out of the morning...

Then it is trying to get her to eat something again, before trying to get her to drink the medicines...

And using the nebuliser on both of us...

And coping with a toddler-in-potty-training as well! She wants to wear panties (or nothing), and we are running to the toilet constantly!

And getting her to stop washing her hands are also something of an exercise in extreme patience!

Exhaustion!

On another note: The Toddler behaved very well at the doctor, and did not cry once. It was a first!

She sat on the bed while the doctor checked her over and the doctor even got a smile and a chuckle!

This little girl has passed another milestone!

Fingers crossed for a better night tonight! We had two terrible nights of coughing in a row now!

I should have said…

I had a bad-taste-in-the mouth experience last week when I took the sick toddler to the doctor on Wednesday last week. Since then I have been thinking of all the things I should have said to the doctor…


My appointment was at 7:45 am, and when I arrived I had to wait. Nothing new there! After half an hour I was still waiting…

The toddler made a nappy and I had to go and change! Should I have left it on (with the accompanying smell), I am sure the doctor would have treated me the same way…

Of course! That same old Murphy enjoys rubbing it in! Not only did the toddler get sick right after I smugly boasted about her health, but the doctor came to call out my name while I was busy changing the nappy.

I ran out in the waiting room when I heard a commotion! The doctor was just turning on her heels, when I called out to her to tell her that I am coming! I saw that she was not impressed!

When I walked into her rooms, she was busy writing, and not once did she look up while she was speaking to me…

She told me to open up the clothes of the toddler. Guess what? The toddler refuses that I take off her jacket, but I did not insist, because it was easy to lift it up.

The toddler also complained bitterly while the doctor was busy with her…

I could sense her frustration! (It was palpable!)

When we sat down at her table again, I had to ask: “Is there an infection?”

“Yes, both ears!”

“The throat is also red!”

“I am going to have to give antibiotics!”

She wrote that prescription in record time, and ushered us out of there!



The toddler also did not want to wave to her! (Thanks, Murphy!)

We were in and out of there in five minutes, and for that she gets over R300. I feel cheated, especially after I had to coax some sort of diagnosis out of her!



I should have said:

I am sorry that I have kept you waiting for two minutes, but I had to change that nappy. I was waiting already for longer than half an hour after my appointment time.

I expect some sort of service and decency from you!

I also expect you to treat the toddler and me with more respect!

I have spent the whole night up with fever and a crying toddler. We are not here because we enjoy being here! We are here because the toddler is sick!

I should have walked out of there, and demanded to see another doctor!

I should have said: “Fuck you!”


One thing I know. I will never go to that doctor again!

Luckily my favourite doctor was on sick leave! Now I know why we love her so much!

A strange week

What a strange week this is...

We are in the midst of winter, and it is VERY difficult to get up in the mornings!

Typical early morning shot while driving through the suburbs

The moon did some strange things this week:

Full moon already up at 4pm on Monday

 The full moon was seen very early, in preparation for that lunar eclipse last night. How beautiful was that?

The lunar eclipse moon when it came out last night (the highest light ball over suburbia)

I was boasting in my lactivist post about the toddler not getting sick. (Murphy always listens! I should have known!)
On Tuesday evening she all of a sudden started to complain of earache, and we had a terrible night of fever. I had to take her to the doctor on Wednesday where she got a full course of antibiotics.

Sick toddler

Luckily it was Youth Day here. A public holiday! Nothing that gets a week moving by faster!
The toddler also felt a lot better today!
It felt like Sunday today and we went out for a lazy lunch.
The toddler had her finger stuck into the door just a minute after this photo was taken...

But all was smiles after a bit of Daddy love...

Toy at the restaurant

Hope you had a great Youth Day as well?

Wordless Wednesday #80 - Sick toddler (I have jinxed it yesterday)

Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!

The toddler and socialising

The working mother always stresses about leaving her child in day care. But one thing she doesn’t have to worry about is the socialising of the child. Day care or crèche or play school takes care of all the socialising needs of the baby, toddler and pre-schooler. Dionna at Code Name Mama reminded me again today that that is something that a SAHM (Stay-at-home-mom) have to be more aware off to ensure that their child is getting socialising skills. Maxabella also had something to say about mixing mamahood and work today - you have to deal wih the guilt that is a "permanent lodger".

Something that a working mother can check off! My toddler learns to socialise every day at day care! (Smug smile!)

On Tuesday I took the toddler and myself to the doctor. This year I can’t seem to shake the allergic sinusitis that’s been bugging me. And the toddler also struggles with it. We coughed terribly during the nights. The doctor wanted to book us off for a few days, but there is too much to be done. I asked her if it was okay if I took the toddler to day care. She said that it is not the ultimate solution, but that she understands. She believes in children going to day care because it is the best for their socialising behaviour. They do get sick more often – usually every two months – but that is something that is sorted by the time they go to school.

But I still felt bad when I went to drop the toddler off after that at the day care... (The working mother’s guilt!)

I have a teen that had to go to a day mother (and after that crèche) since she was three months old. She is now one of the best well-adjusted children that I know with regards her socialising skills. She is relaxed in every socialising situation and keeps her own. She has a lot of friends and we usually marvel about how easy she talks to anybody! Not how I remember myself as a socially akward child and teen who struggled through her school years. Luckily it got better during university...

Mieka, the toddler, also gets along with adults very easily. She does not shy away when somebody wants to engage with her. When I walk with her into day care in the morning, she starts saying the names of some of her class mates. One of the favourites is Ané. I hope that she will also benefit socially like her sister did.

(Powerwoman does the right thing! Yes, I need some positiveness today!)

(Photo: Mieka at Tiny Tumbles on Saturday)

Related posts:
 
A day in the working mom
The toddler - day care shuffles
Day care woes

Lost children

I was booked off sick for two days. It did me a whole lot of good! I actually got to read a whole book by Aher Arop Bol, The lost boy. In the past 20 months I did not get that much time for book reading. My book stack is growing and growing of books to be read!

Aher Arop Bol is the real life story of a Sudanese refugee boy who lost his parents and landed up in refugee camps in Sudan with his uncle when he was three or four. He had to fend for himself for fifteen years. He made his way through Africa in search for education, and always for word of his parents. He got some education in the camps, also in Zimbabwe, and lastly in South Africa. He met Sannie Meiring in Pretoria who helped him to write the book.

Of course, I bawled my eyes out! I am looking through the haze of my contact lenses right now!

I am thinking today of all the children who have lost their parents, and who struggle for survival every day. As long as there are refugees, there are stories like these for each and every one of them. But the children get to me the most!

We have a small little person in our lives that we only want the best for. Our lives revolve around her! Who look after all these children without parents to fend for them? It touched me that Aher Arap Bol said that the kindness of strangers helped him to survive. I hope we will be able to BE some of those strangers when presented with the same situation... (Look more closely to the people selling that stuff on the street corners.)

(Powerwoman on her soapbox-post)

What colour is Tuesday? Deep purple for sick

Blogland is full of it. Complaints of feeling overwhelmed, and feeling under the weather! It is this time of the year! It is between seasons; not yet spring, and we are “sick” (literally and figuratively) of IT.


I dragged myself to the doctor today. Why is it that we have no problem taking our kids to the doctor, but we neglect ourselves? If I don’t feel that I can’t get up, I don’t feel I am “worthy” to take myself to the doctor! But Dries has been nagging me for a couple of days. I think it is this cough that sounds like a fake cough. You can’t help to cough the irritating cough every couple of minutes! You are an even bigger irritation to yourself!

I got my antibiotics, and was planning to go to the office from there. The doctor stopped me. She says we have something – she thinks it is a South African thing – that thinks we can’t be sick. She sees it when people come back with more severe strains. One of the main reasons is that people do not get enough bed rest when sick.

She booked me off for two days! Now I just have to get over my guilty self...

Self-talk: I have not been sick for nearly two years. The work does not revolve around me. Luckily! I need to get better for the sake of Mieka who is still breastfeeding. She is also not yet 100% after I took her to the doctor on Friday.

Now off to bed! SLEEP! (Yay, that neglected thing!) Sometimes there are some blessings, even in being sick! I get permission to sleep!

What colour is your Tuesday? Mine is purple, for being under the weather, but getting to stay in bed.

Looking at the stars

The blocked nose of the past few days made it very difficult for the toddler to go to sleep. More than the usual! Even breastfeeding did not do the trick; because she had to come up for air more than she was able to drink! The flu is a bummer!

She was crying and putting up a fight to go to sleep last night. Out of sure desperation I drew the curtains and blinds and told her we were going to look at the stars!

In suburbia there is not much to see through the haze of lights and smog. We could distinguish a faint glimmer of some stars above the silhouettes of the nearby houses in the complex. We did see two planes going by as well...

It was five minutes at the most, and I heard the faint snore of a blocked little nose... Mieka was gone for the night! I called Dries to come and look at the sweet figure lying on the bed. Very precious!

Dries said tonight he missed her in our bed last night! (We don’t know what we want, do we?)

I have found another tactic to get her to sleep: Looking at stars! Definitely worth trying again!

Sick out

Trying to take the nappy off the teddy,
patience very far away

When the little one is sick, Every-Thing comes to a standstill! E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G! Shew-eeeh! It is rough! And we have only got one toddler...


All our plans for the weekend were cancelled because of sickness! Not because of our toddler who was sick, but because of the other parties involved. In the end it turned out to be a good thing. Toddler is “Miss Difficult” herself! Nothing seems to be pleasing or to her liking! When something falls on the floor, she goes into “Princess”-mode, and goes “Uh-uh-uh!!” until someone picks it up, or we suffer a MAJOR tantrum upheaval! (Not that we “dance” to her every whim...)

She’s not feeling well! We KNOW THAT! We FEEL THAT!

My Mom looked after her on Friday, and said that she kept them very busy. When she traced the outline of her hand on a paper, she had to do it again. And again. And again... Uh, uh, uh!

The fever has finally broken! We are only struggling with the blocked and runny nose. It had us up until 12 last night, because she could not drink or sleep properly. Hopefully she will sleep in her bed again tonight, because my back is broken, and Hubby’s back is broken. She sleeps on 90%of our bed, and we hang on to dear life! The double bed is way too small!

We went to the movies yesterday, and at one stage I thought that we did not fully think it through. The toddler was saying “Klaar!” (Finish) when the previews were showing already. She was walking around in the isle, and moving from my lap to her sister’s lap to Dad’s lap! Shrek is a very very very long movie! Luckily the storyline was not bad! We made it to the end! Huge achievement!

We have also been collecting a variety of containers with food. We try different kinds of food/snacks/tit-bits to get her to eat, but when Little Missy is sick, nothing seems to her liking! We actually got excited when she ate her first spoonful of lasagne!

We survived the last four days! Well done to us! (Huge smile of relief!)

Tiny Tumbles:
exercises with teddies (going to the Teddy Bear Clinic)
(Mieka was not her happy self this Saturday)

Related posts:

Our little toddler is sick

List of tactics to get them to sleep

Our little toddler is sick

List of tactics to get them to sleep

Hubby is sick! Toddler is sick! THE FLU! They are a sorry bunch here! I am ignoring that irritating scratch in my throat. I was lying next to the toddler last night; on the ground (Take Note!), when I was thinking how many tactics we use to get them to sleep. ANY-THING, even something as sleeping on the floor, will sound a bit crazy when someone tells you about it. But not when you are into desperate measures for sleep.

I was reading Maxabella’s post at Real Bloggers United about her sleep deprived years and that she found that Patience was her partner. I was feeling very smug. It seems they had a much harder time than we are having...

Just for interest sake. I was sleeping on the floor in Mieka’s room, because Dries has BAD BAD flu and he was in our bed. Mieka did not want me to put her down in her cot. So I made us a bed on the floor, and spent the night there. Not very comfortable! I was cold the whole night, while she was burning up with fever... The things you do for sleep!

The tactics we use to get them to sleep (tactics that work):

• Breastfeeding (one of my favourites);
• Bottle;
• Rocking them in your arms (although it is not one of Mieka’ favourites);
• Sitting on an exercise ball while rocking them (used when Mieka was smaller.);
• Walking with her on your shoulder while busy in the house (tactic of Dries);
• Driving around in the car;
• Wearing them in a pouch;
• Pushing them in a pram. Back and forth, or going for a walk;
• Lying next to them on the bed until they fall asleep;
• Looking at stars. (added on 2-10-2010)

Any other suggestions?

(Notice that we don’t do the cry out method.)