Enjoying the Halloween loot

Yes it's that time of year

Roz on the up

Hurray, there have been several smiley days at nursery this fourth week. In fact I think every day has been a smiley day for Roz. And this morning she actually went to her key worker, Melissa, without so much as a peep. There were one or two threatening downturns of the mouth but in the end I think she was alright.

I may have heard the beginnings of a small wail as I walked down the corridor but perhaps that was me trying to convince myself she couldn't have gotten over me so quickly. I am heart-broken but also jubilant she may now be on her way to enjoying her days at nursery without mummy.

I hope she does anyway as this is now the second week in which I've felt the ominous threat of strange disease. After another slight bout of chills on Monday evening - nothing unusual there though, just about everyone at work is complaining of these - my tonsils have swollen so that they now feel like they've taken over my head and it hurts to swallow. I have been eating copious amounts of Manuka honey in hopes of alleviating the infection.

Today, however, I realised a spot on my upper lip felt a bit swollen, as if I'd bitten it or something. And then when I came home I realised there were two or three spots on my fingers, and some more on my toes, that felt like impending blisters.

They look like what Alex had when he caught hand, foot and mouth disease from Izzy but I didn't catch them last time and Roz doesn't look like she has anything - yet - so now I am just crossing my fingers that if I have got the damn thing it doesn't get worse than this. And also that Roz quickly picks up any immunity I might develop.

Hah and there I was worrying about swine flu.

Roz's latest thing is headbanging, by the way. When sitting upright, she'll rock herself back and forward, laughing particularly if she has something firm to bang her back - and occasionally her head - on. Sometimes she'll also crawl onto her front and headbang. I keep worrying she'll bash her nose on the floor but so far this hasn't happened yet.

She's also started enjoying splashing the water in the bath. The last two times we've given her one she's had a jolly old time smashing her hand onto the surface and laughing when the water splashes her in the face.

Izzy has been busy making me early and not-so-surprise birthday cards for the past week. One evening, on the way home, she asked me what day my birthday was on. When I told her she said 'Victoria was asking so we could make you a card. It's a surprise card!' And then two days in a row she's come home presenting me birthday cards she's made that day.

She still cracks me up.

Settling down

Well this was Roz's third week at nursery. Finally we have reports of laughs as well as the first day in which I left her and she did not cry. And it wasn't because she didn't realise I was going. It was this Thursday - when I tend to drop them off a bit later than I normally do because I don't have to be in as early - and her room were in the garden, which always seems to intrigue her more than the room.

So I'm finally starting to feel a bit more at ease about her being at the new nursery, although it will be much longer before I can think of the powers that be who decided to close the work nursery without also wanting to throw eggs at them.

I got a tin of hydrolised milk powder from the GP - this is the milk kids with milk allergies drink - but when we made up a bottle of it, it smelled so vile - like mash potato with the lingering stink of rancid oil - I didn't have the heart to give it to Roz to drink. I let her smell it and she didn't look impressed.

And so though I have no doubt that normal milk powder is equally chemically formulated and manipulated I think I'm not going to bother with this milk unless she looks like she needs it. Alex has asked what I'm doing with it and I've told him that he can try it if he wants - after all he mentioned something weeks ago about wanting to do his bit to feed her too - but I will work away with the lousy milk pump for now.

I've tried her on milk again to see if the effects might be fading but the answer is no. Meanwhile our appointment with the paediatrician has been postponed from early to mid-November, which is a bit annoying.

Roz is thriving otherwise, though since she started nursery, she's been feeding a bit more at night as well. Which means I haven't really had a clear night's sleep for a while. The GP did reassure me that even if I couldn't produce enough milk to give to the nursery for the day, she would likely readjust and simply feed more at night, making do on water during the day.

She's started eating more seriously in the last month or so and now can get through about half a packet of baby food at lunch time, instead of just a teaspoon or two. And so I'm hoping that she will be eating seriously by the time she's one. And then I can just worry about what sort of supplements to put in her food to make up for her not drinking milk.

Every weekend since nursery has started, she's had a cold. But I think it's also a good sign that it's usually gone by the time she goes back in on Monday.

This week I also had some strange bug. I felt tired all of Sunday but put it down to the lingering effects of football on Thursday. Then by 8pm I had to put on a fleece and lie under a duvet, shivering. Spent most of the next day in bed, feeling quite lousy, with an aching head and neck and wondering if this was the onset of swine flu, as I also felt mildly nauseous. But I felt better by late afternoon and after a bath was almost normal again.

So far it doesn't look like the girls have caught it although they both have slight coughs and Roz has a bit of a temperature today. Fingers crossed it's over by tonight.

'Mummy, why did you say it like that?'

Poor Izzy is now not infrequently peeved that I have turned into such a grouchy mother, particularly in that crucial hour after I've just picked them up and dinner is not yet on the table.

Stress at work has, if anything, gone up since I've been away, and so I'm usually still decompressing when we arrive home. Roz is usually scrabbling for a feed as soon as we get in and so, if Izzy starts whining because she's tired, it only takes a moan or two before I'm seeing red.

The other day she needed to go to the bathroom and though she is usually capable of going on her own - turning on the light, and washing her hands as needed - when tired, she whines for me to go with her, or to help her and sometimes gets her knickers in a literal twist.

The other day, she had her hand on the door and was leaning back into the living room when she started going 'Muuuummyyy...' to which I responded with an ill-tempered 'what?', then felt a bit ashamed to hear her ask, 'Why did you say it like that?'

So I'm trying now, to have leftovers prepared from the weekend, to be able to put dinner that's not just pasta, on the table within half an hour of our getting home.

And I'm trying to remember to cut Izzy some slack. After all, nine hours plus at the nursery is a pretty wearing day for her as well.

I'm also starting to wonder if I should go in even earlier in the morning, let Alex get them dressed and ready to go to nursery, then pop out of work to send them there. Because that would at least enable me to leave a bit earlier, prepare dinner before I get them, and have a bit more time to unwind before I get them.

Hmmm am not sure I could cope with having even less free time after they go to bed than I do now though.

Izzy's also driving me nuts at the moment because she's still spilling things on the table, her chair and floor. About a month ago I decided I had had enough of her dropping food all over the place, not because she was tired or does not have the necessary muscle control, but because her eyes would frequently be glued to the TV as she raised the spoon to her mouth.

So I stopped allowing her to watch her shows. But she she just started watching mine - she quite likes Rachel Allen on the food channel. So then I moved her chair away from its TV-facing position. Except then she started turning around in her seat to watch my TV shows.

I know the answer is to turn off the TV completely. And I'm getting there. But it was so nice regaining control of the TV for a little while.

Aside from all that it's really quite nice watching Izzy grow. A couple of months ago we learned her feet had shot up from size 6 to 8. And I've just bought her three new pairs of pyjamas because the t-shirts on some of her old ones - admittedly for age 2-3 - were really getting a bit too fitting across the chest.

She's settled down to her gym and ballet classes as well. And although she did not know any other children at the gym class to start with, she's very eager to go and shows no signs of shyness about getting in line to go into the gym at the start of the class.

This week, after class, I chatted a while to another mom while she ran around the field outside with a new friend. I'm finally getting a bit of an idea of what she does as well, as she's quite happy to demonstrate what she's learned: the bunny hops, forward rolls, star jumps, jumping on the trampette etc. I still hope they'll let us watch the last class or something though.

A few weeks ago we were at a birthday party at the gym and she was walking forward on one of the beams quite confidently, but when I asked if that was something they did in the class she said no.

Ballet is great because the dance studio it's held in has a glass wall along one side and benches outside. So you can actually sit outside and observe what's going on, which is what quite a few parents do since it's only a half-hour long.

Her writing is also coming along. It's a bit dreadful by Malaysian standards because she's not practised any letters on lines to tame the proportions. Because here it would seem a little bit pushy of course to make a four-year-old practise letters, never mind practise them between lines! But I recall her cousin Jie's homework of Chinese characters in squares from last year and am now wondering if - horrors - this means Izzy's handwriting in the future will be like the handwriting of all the British and Kiwi pen pals I had when I was younger: enormous and ungainly. And that's saying something considering I had serious chicken scrawl handwriting for a Malaysian.

The way she writes Isabel now is actually quite cute. It looks so stylised I feel like scanning it in so she can use it in future as a graphic. Her 'a' looks like a balloon because she keeps forgetting to put the line on the right side, rather than coming down the middle of a circle, and the 'e' can go left or right, depending on whether she remembers my prompt: 'left to right, then a curly'.

I did once try on one of our free mornings to make her write 'A' and 'a' properly, with the lines going from top to bottom and everything. And she did, once she worked out she would get a jelly bean reward each time she wrote a nine times without error. But she's obviously forgotten now and I've realised that was too easy a task for her to earn jelly beans by. I had to stop her once we'd done 'A', 'a', B', 'b' and 'c'.

Her key worker at nursery, Becky, this week asked if I would like her to try to teach Izzy to learn to read three-letter words. She said she really thought Izzy was ready for it and that, based on what she does now, is at about reception level at school, ie the earliest stage and probably what she would have been doing in three months had the school system not just changed so that you now enter school at five, rather than before.

I said that would be great as Alex and I had been showing her a bit of that every now and then but Izzy, though showing occasional signs of interest - for example if she wants to write a letter she's quite happy for us to help her sound out all the letters in all the words in it so she write them out - doesn't often have the patience to work it all out for herself.

Also we're not quite sure how to teach her the phonic sounds properly. Though I do know enough to have once had to stop Alex going 'C-h-e-e-s-e, Izzy. So the first letter 'c' - what sound does that make? - 'ch'.'

I am aware that, when she's interested, she's on the verge of working out how to read. Unfortunately she's just not quite that interested yet to get from sounding out each letter to putting all the sounds together to make the word. So anyway will leave it to Becky. If she can teach her to read while she's four, her daddy would be ever so proud as, earlier this year, he was wondering if we could do it.

All I'm thinking is: if she can read herself and I don't ever have to read A Bunch of Daisys to her again that would be godsend!

Testing the Halloween costumes

An eye for the jugular

'Izzy will you please finish your dinner.' 'I have, I've eaten eight pieces of chicken.' 'Really? That can't be right because I only gave you four.' 'I ate them slowly so there were eight.' 'So if I come and check your plate will all the chicken be gone?' 'But you musn't check my plate mummy.' 'And why not?' 'Because you love me, mummy, don't you?'

Remembering Mama

Am still coming to grips with her going and I think part of my strategy has been to avoid thinking about it and about the ramifications of not going home for the wake and scattering of ashes.

When kongkong passed away last year I felt immediately that I had to go. Mainly because mom has no siblings and so thought she might appreciate the lot of us being around together to remind her at least she has us. And the dog.

Hopefully dad's been coping alright with his siblings. Am planning to call to speak to him after this, as have up to now been slightly more choked with guilt about not flying home.

Partly because I wonder and worry slightly as to how the folks are taking it. I know they will mourn their mother of course. But I'm a bit more worried as to how they handle this latest intimacy with death.

I know Izzy and Roz introduced them all to the age of grand-somethingness. But you can laugh away being called a grand-something. Even I feel a slight change in the air.

Still. All the more reason to live a good life, eh? For comfort, I am turning to Canon Henry Scott-Holland:

Death is nothing at all
I have only slipped away into the next room
I am I and you are you
Whatever we were to each other
That we are still
Call me by my old familiar name
Speak to me in the easy way you always used
Put no difference into your tone
Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow
Laugh as we always laughed
At the little jokes we always enjoyed together
Play, smile, think of me, pray for me
Let my name be ever the household word that it always was
Let it be spoken without effort
Without the ghost of a shadow in it
Life means all that it ever meant
It is the same as it ever was
There is absolute unbroken continuity
What is death but a negligible accident?
Why should I be out of mind
Because I am out of sight?
I am waiting for you for an interval
Somewhere very near
Just around the corner
All is well.
Nothing is past; nothing is lost
One brief moment and all will be as it was before
How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again!

Izzy riding with Cinderella

So proud of her new jammies

Thanks Aunty Soph!

Roz decides she wants to feed herself

She pushed away the spoon several times then just dived into the bowl. So be it, bub.

Trying on Aunty Cassie's souvenirs

Izzy feeding baby bear

Breathless

My stars are clearly out of alignment this week. On top of having to go back to work, Mama - my dad's mother - passed away on Wednesday. I don't know whether I'm in shock still or have been anesthesizing myself to the acceptance of her going for a while now but, to my surprise, I've found myself more relieved than sad.

She had Alzheimer's and I do wish I did more for her. But she was so completely and absolutely cared for, and loved, by my parents and my aunts and uncles, I felt she never lacked anything, or needed anything from me. And so although I wish I could have done something for her to repay the fondness bestowed on me, I'd like to think I was fortunate enough to just have been able to enjoy the beneficience of a grandmother, who did not need or expect anything in return.

We saw her on our last trip home. Before we left for Singapore, where my eldest uncle and aunt cared for her, my dad kindly warned me that Mama no longer looked the way I might remember her. I was aware of this of course, having seen pictures of her as her Alzheimer's progressed, and having heard about it from various family members.

But when I saw her I was greatly relieved to feel no fear or repulsion - I feared most that I would involuntarily betray her in such a way - over a face and body now slack and stiff with immobility and dimmed consciousness. No, my grandmother was still my grandmother.

And I'm convinced that for at least a few minutes on the second day of our visit, she recognised me. At the other times I was never sure whether she even realised we were there, but it didn't matter to me, as long as she was happy. But there was one point when she looked at me, and then smiled. And she gripped my hand several times. The gestures, the actions were exactly the same ones she carried out in earlier times, when I first met her after being away for a while. Except that they'd also be followed with a loving, sniffing kiss.

So now she's gone I find myself mainly sad for my dad and his siblings. And a little for me. But really, I'm quite happy that Mama is free again.

In my head, she is striding purposefully about on her morning walks, towel over one shoulder; rubbing her feet together before sleeping to stimulate circulation; practising her calligraphy with memorised poems; gassing again with her best friend See Toh sinsang, and her sister Yee Poh. She guessed right that my husband is a good sort, he having been the one to insist we visit her the last time we went home, before I even raised the subject.

She is soft satin clothes, Yardley's lavendar talcum powder and hair in heated curlers. She is girls whistling and tree-climbing, Sugus for bleeding knees and Princess Iron Fan and Monkey.

Good bye Mama. I love you.

All dolled up and ready for nursery

So yum

I think I have only maybe twice been surprised to eat sweet raspberries from the supermarket. All of these were sweet. Am so going back to a pick-your-own farm.

Pick-your-own raspberries

Good thing I tied her hair up

We're at the beach!

Sits up by herself quite well now