Star Cruising

We have done it again; travelling without our helper and this time we did it together with my brother and parents-in-law. We were on board Star Cruise's Super Virgo for a 3D/2N cruise to Pulau Redang, Malaysia.

I really love and hate travelling with my kids. I love it when I see those precious smiles on their faces. I hate it because it usually brings out the worst in me. It is almost like this OCD got to me; working myself crazy to ensure that they are safe, well-fed and sleep soundly throughout the trip. Talking about being paranoid.

Anyhow, besides being rather short-fused whenever I travel with the young ones, I did have a good time swimming with the kids in Pulau Redang and enjoying the wonderful sea view from the balcony of our cabin.

And I have to thank my dearest Mr Hubby for helping me out with our kids, especially with Leonitus, who decided to give us a preview of his Terrible Two.

Now that we are more confident to travel with our kids, nothing will stand in our way for our next overseas trip in Sept. : )

More pictures of my two munchkins here.

Staring Cancer in the Face

We have been planning to bring my mom for a short vacation coming Sept, when I told her I am giving her a trip to Phuket as part of her Mother's Day present, she was ecstatic. I was equally excited because I had always wanted to bring my mom abroad and finally I have the chance.

That was last Sunday. Since then, a drastic turn of event had shattered our exhilaration.

Three years ago, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, terminal stage. She had chemotherapy which gave her good results despite the fact that the cancer cells had metastasized to her lungs. After a series of chemo, she was put on a type of anti-cancer drug that was working well for her - until now.

During one of her BSE, she had detected lumpiness in her breast, so she asked for a Mammogram and a Breast Ultrasound. The results came in on Monday. It wasn’t looking good.

Her doctor had scheduled her for a CT scan and had talked to her about the possibility of mastectomy or another round of chemo.

My mom is devastated.

There had been a dark cloud looming above my head since then. I tried to tell myself that I should be grateful because we came so close to losing her the other time. These three years of borrowed time had given my mom the opportunity to travel to many countries that she had wanted to visit, witnessed the wedding of my brother, celebrated the birth of her two grandsons and made many new friends in her cancer support group.

Having lost my cousin, her niece, to breast cancer just months ago, it sure felt as though Death still lingers among us.

I know I can’t have her around forever but I do hope we would have another three more years, or if I could have it my way, another five more years, if that’s not being too greedy. It would mean so much to me and for my children, they would retain better memories of this grandmother who dote on them so dearly.

But having said that, my wish for her is to be blessed with having the quality of life, even if it means shortening the length of time we have of her. I just don't ever want her to suffer.

It has became much harder to stay positive confronting cancer for the second time, but I will have to find the strengthen to be my mom’s rock; I can’t crumble, not now, not in the future.

With this post, I am linking up with Shell for her Pour Your Heart Out Wednesday.

The Darndest Things That I Heard

Do you remember watching this comedy talk show, hosted by Bill Cosby, "Kids Say The Darndest Things"?

I have exact one at home, who says the darndest things, sometime at the most inappropriate occasion.

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We were in the lift, Laetitia saw a lady eating banana, so she pointed to the lady and said, "Look, someone eating banana." "Yes." I nodded. "Eats banana... just like a monkey!" The lift door opened, I had to make a hasty exit or risk dying from embarrassment.

Another time, we were in the nearby mall, walking behind a rather obese woman. Laetitia suddenly commented, "Wow! She is so FAT! I don't like fat people." Luckily the mall was very crowded and too noisy for the woman in front to hear her.

Whenever my kids misbehave, I would give them a warning before making them stand at a corner. I would say something like, "Stop it now or you'll get into serious trouble!" Then one evening, the TV was showing a guy confessing that he was in some kind of trouble (can't remember his exact words). Laetitia turned to me and said, "See, he is in trouble, his mommy will ask him to stand at the corner!" I couldn't stop laughing.

Just now over at dinner. Laetitia was showing off some new Mandarin phrases which she had recently mastered and she had hardly touched her food. So I barked her, "Laetitia, quick, eat your dinner." She whined, "I can't finished. It's too much." "That's nonsense!" I shot back. To my biggest surprise, she said, "No. That's not nonsense. That's English." I almost fell off my dinning chair.

What would I do if I didn't have this good sense of humor?!

Those Who Are Special

"All children are special to their parents.” If you are a parent, I believe you would agree with me.

But some children are born special; differently, far from the expectations of their parents sometime. They are the children with special needs – children with physical/mental disabilities, terminal/chronic diseases. They came to our world with hearing impaired, ADHD, Down Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Cystic Fibrosis, Autism, Asthma to name a few.

At the beginning, most families with these special needs children felt as though they had been single-out for punishment for the wrongs that the mankind had committed but fortunately many learned to accept and love their children for who they are along the way. Many go on to be amazed by the qualities of these children.

I have two very beautiful and lovable children. Both of them have sensitive airways. Their paediatrician says that they have 80% chance of developing asthma.

Leonitus, my son, had his first episode of Bronchiolitis when he was 2 months old and subsequently, he had so many recurrences that I had decided not to keep track. (His doc just reminded me, it was his sixth, last month.) He is sick practically every other month and he has been on daily medication of Singulair and Ventolin for the last 5 months but without much success to keep him away from bouts of respiratory infections.

When modern medication failed to safeguard Leonitus’s health, I became very anxious, trying all sorts of alternatives like TCM, buying all types of gadgets in the market that boasted their effectiveness in lowering respiratory-related allergies.

But even with our $3000 vacuum cleaner and an expensive humidifier, nothing much had change with the health of our two kids, in particular, Leonitus. This was the period of time, I felt very useless, defeated, deflated. I was directionless. There were many questions circulating in my head. ‘What is wrong?’ ‘Why can't he get better?’ 'Is it my fault?' ‘Why him?’ ‘Why me?’

But there had never been an answer.

For both my pregnancies, I have had neonatal screenings during the first trimester for fetal anomalies, in particular Down Syndrome. I was very sure that if the result had indicated any subnormalities, I would terminate my pregnancy and not consider bring the child to the world. I had recommended this screening to many preggy friends because I thought I was doing something right, but actually I was putting them up for a chance of moral dilemma. I was wrong, very wrong.

My paradigm completely shifted when I chanced upon the blog of Kelle Hampton, a mom who blog about her struggle, her acceptance and her celebration of life of her daughter, Nella, an extremely sweet little girl who has Down Syndrome.

Pictures from Kelle Hampton's blog - Enjoying the Small Things

I love Kelle Hampton's blog, because I find myself drawing strength from it. It had taught me to enjoy my children for who they are, in sickness or in health. More often than not, when we are micro-scrutinising our child's health issue, we forgot to take a step back and see beyond his/her problem, there are lots of potentials awaiting our discovery.

As of last month, Leonitus and Laetitia had both been 'upgraded' to a steroid-based inhaler and I have prepared myself for one, if not two, asthmatic kid in the future. However, nothing will change the way I am going to love them and I will raise them no differently from any healthy children.

This post is dedicated to all the mothers in the world who has never given up on their less than perfect children. Happy Mother's Day!

And special thanks to Kelle Hampton.