Thought of this last night...

Since having been diagnosed (or assumed) to be infected with Influenza A by the GP today, I (Boon Heng) am on self-imposed quarantine in the other room. Definitely caught it from Oliver, so I'm on Tamiflu as well as the usual drugs. And since I don't have a blog and so am hijacking Oliver's, and Heidi is back from infantcare, I decided to create this list of my top 10 English songs. Extremely difficult to squeeze 10 fave songs into a list when there are so many I love and grew up with, although some are new rediscoveries, and so many I can't remember now, so my rule is that every artiste can only have one song, otherwise I'll have many many George Michael's. There are also a few songs hovering outside the top 10, so this list might change. By the time Oliver and Heidi understands music, some of these would have been oldies (some already are).

The worst thing about being sick is knowing that others need to cover your duty... Sophia needs to take care of Heidi on her own, my Mum and Sis taking care of Oliver, and my colleagues having to cover me. And not knowing if I had already spread to them.

Oliver has Influenza A

Doctor did not rule out Influenza A H1N1, and hence Oliver has to take Tamilflu. Worried, it was reported in 2005 that twelve children in Japan who had H1N1 died of side effects of Tamilflu. Investigations undergone but I could not find any latest report on it.

Oliver started having fever which hovered around 38 degress last Friday. On Saturday, Boon Heng told me that the childcare centre informed him that two kids had fever, but they recovered the very next day. We therefore waited a few days to monitor Oliver's condition. His condition improved on Monday when he went over to his Grandparent's house. However, on Tuesday night, the fever returned and Boon Heng brought him to the Raffles Children Clinic. Dr Veronica Toh took a swab test and Oliver was tested positive for Influenza A.

He returned home on the very afternoon of seeing Dr Toh and I rushed home from work to find a lethargic Oliver responding weakly to my conversation with him. Once a while, he went to the bed to lay down. He sneezed very frequently, almost every 10 minutes and the mucus would fly everywhere. "Nose, nose" was probably the most frequent words he used these day as he pointed at his nose as an indication for us to wipe his mucus.

Since Monday, we had separated Oliver and Heidi, and seeing Oliver on Wednesday in his weak stage was really heartaching. I worried about catching the bug and passing it on to Heidi, Oliver had to go to his grandparent's house, and I missed him very badly. Feeling helpless about the circumstance, the feeling of guilt creeped in and I felt miserable not being able to take care of Oliver.

On Tuesday, his fever went down. Thursday, there were less sneezing and more coughing. This morning, Boon Heng said he coughed all night and hardly sleep. Gosh, I really don't know what I can do but to stay away from Oliver. This is really a torture. A mother not being able to take after her own son.

Kangtang

It just isn't natural for us to speak in Mandarin at home. So Oliver's and Heidi's exposure to Chinese and dialects are quite limited.

In the past he would slang his "xia yu" (raining) and "niu nai" (milk). He don't say them anymore, instead he has now a funny accent on his name (zhou yi en), and "wu ming tao".

He also doesn't quite like us to call him by his Chinese name, insisting it should be Orriverr...

Nowness

This monkey sure likes banana, just like his mom.

We are noticing that the word "now" and many other new words are creeping into Oliver's vocab. For example he would say "I want apple" in the past, now it is "I want apple now".

Also, whenever I asked him where did he took the boat to, he can recall and will say "wu ming tao" (Pulau Ubin).

His development is quite similar to that of Nate's, one of his classmates.

primary school reunion

My primary school reunion is getting quite regular now, almost once in 3 months. This time round, on 1 August, we had actually planned to gatecrash our primary school, knowing that we would be chased out by the nearby security guards at YOG, or the old MOE. In the end that was really what happened, even though we thought that we could gain some sympathy points with Oliver, Heidi, and my friend's 2 kids. Our school compound has been vacated many times already by different occupants, the latest being UNSW. All we could do was to peep from the fence outside at the carpark and reminisce about the good old days when things were simpler.

We ended up at Spruce, a nice little place at the former MFA. Oliver had a great time at the playground. From this picture you can tell that we all support 政府, except Oliver.

First trip to Pulau Ubin

Here's a gleaming Oliver proudly taking a picture with his new sling bag from Charles and Yvonne and getting ready for his first family trip to Pulau Ubin. As Oliver said, the bag was from Jia Jun. Both Jia Jun and Oliver used to be buddies in the same class, but now they are in different class. Hi Charles and Yvonne, if you are reading this.. Thanks again!

The weather on Sunday which is also the 44th Birthday of Singapore was just nice. It was a perfect date as the next day is a Public Holiday, meaning we can have more rest at home if needed. The two kids were fine, both of them were not sick and were in good mood (very important).

So here we come, Pulau Ubin, the place where my mum called home when she was a little girl and where my grandma lived for a major part of her life. The last visit to Pulau Ubin was with my grandma. Now that she had move on, the visit to Pulau Ubin with Oliver and Heidi was just like bringing my kids to see her. Oh no, its just me getting sentimental again...

I was glad to see so many old bumboats still operating. I guess the fee charged- $2.50 per passenger (free for children under 1 year old) was just not viable for any profitable business opportunities, which is a good thing. Most of these old folks probably depended on their humble looking boat as their sole livelihood.

In this picture, Oliver looking apprehensible with the boat ride, and Heidi was clinging to me like her usual self.

For memory, I took a picture of the boat number. Maybe I should try my luck on 4D with this number. This boatman takes pride in his boat. He even pasted a poster on Frustrations which was literally transferred from Mandarin.

The boat ride took less than 15 minutes and here we were at the Pulau Ubin Jetty. We walked quite slowly because Oliver was overwhelmed with standing on the jetty overlooking the water. From this picture, it was not visible that there were in fact many people coming into Pulau Ubin.

The last time when Boon Heng and I came PU, our grandma had a good long chat with one of her friends there. I visited her grocery store and there she was, barefooted and sitting there looking after her store. Her eyesight was almost blind when I found her trying to figure out the direction of our voice when we spoke to her. We identified ourselves as my grandma's grand daughter and grand son-in-law. She asked about my grandma. Boon Heng shaked his head to signal me not to tell the truth, so we told her that grandma was not feeling too well and resting at home. Somehow, looking at her made me missed my grandma even more. It is crazy of me to say this, but I really hope I would see her around at my next trip to PU.

We frequent our usual food place, Pulau Ubin First Stop Restaurant. It was packed and almost every eateries were packed with people.

Oliver was a picky eater. He did not have eat much here. Heidi was enjoying every single bit of food (from the restaurant) I put into her mouth. Surprisely, she seemed to dislike the Heinz Apple Muesli which I just bought. Tough job for Boon Heng and a breeze for me to be in charge of Heidi.

See the Thomas and friends sticker on Oliver's head. Thats not the doing of Heidi or Boon Heng or even me. It was Oliver himself who put on the sticker on his head. Who knows who is going on in his little head? Such a cute little boy and I couldn't help myself taking this picture. Perhap when our little boy becomes older, he will laugh at himself when he sees this picture.

After having our lunch, we headed inward into the island. At first, it was just an attempt to take the boat and have our lunch at Pulau Ubin, then head back the main island. However, time permited and Oliver wanted to "walk, walk", we asked ourselves why not. Hence, we walked the road heading towards the Village Chef's house. Unfortunately, the day became hotter and before reaching the Village Chef's house, we decided to head back . My grandma was quite "well known" in PU, but for the wrong reason. It was too sad to say over the blog and with all respect for my grandma, I should not have it said here.

In the picture, you see an exhausted Heidi soon falling asleep on Boon Heng's shoulder. Our little girl did not have her morning nap. I think she probably knew that she was heading to PU and wouldn't want to miss a thing.

Pulau Ubin or Wo min Tau.. stay this way and don't ever change.

iwannagohome

Oliver can be the spoksperson for this shop. Nowadays he often says this when we are outside or when we fetch him from school. Strange as he used to always wanna go out.

Heidi don't touch

Oliver loves his cars and trucks and trains and everyday without fail he would park and repark them ad nauseam. He probably will be a car valet when he grows up.

He would whine and kick up a fuss if Heidi touches his cars and would say "Heidi don't touch" when he senses that Heidi is moving towards them. And usually he would use his body to block Heidi from touching if his cars are on the sofa and Heidi manages to get close to it.

The sofa now is basically his car park and as if it isn't enough, he recently has expanded his territory to the room. Even before he sleeps, he would want to bring in his favourite green truck, his red truck and his red monster bike and place it between me and him. and he would again say "Heidi don't touch".

Oliver Hour at Ion

At Tanjong Pagar MRT station waiting for the lift

Taking the MRT to Orchard Station

In front of Ion which just opened

This looks like an avocado.