Dummy

I have been meaning to wean my twin boys off their dummies since they turn 1 year old, but I have delayed again and again as their dummies has saved our sleeps.  They have cut back significantly on their use, and only allowed to have them in their cots.

A few days back, I noticed a tear in one of the dummies, and was worried that they might bite and chew on it and be swallowing bits of rubber.  I don't want to buy them a new pair either.  Perhaps it is now time to try to wean them off their dummies. I'm just going to cut off the bit that is torn.

The plan is to nip the top off gradually over a couple of months until they are unable to gain hold of the dummy in their mouths.  Fingers crossed it will work and they will abandon the dummy by themselves.
I cut off the top of both dummies feeling really anxious of what my come.

Ethan was the first to get the 'fixed' dummy, he took it and oblivious that it has been nipped at the top he popped it in his mouth.  A few seconds later, he pulled it out, examined to make sure that it is his dummy, and popped it back in.  Yet something felt different, he took it back out to examine it, I tried very hard to keep a straight face watching this.  Niel soon asked for his dummy and did the same.
Soon they started to chatter: "dummy broke...dummy broke...broke dummy..."

I hid my wicked laughter and tuck them in their cots.  "Good night, darling" I said, they pop the dummy back into their mouths and slept anyway.   That went well.... looking forward to the next nipping day.

Sunday School: Samson's long hair

Niel in Samson's long (purple) hair

This week's Sunday School story was about the strong man, Samson, and his long hair.  I made a long hair strips from purple construction paper (because purple is the only colour I have left in my pack) and tape them in around a band that would fit the kids' head.  I was planning to cut/tear the long hair when I get to the story part where Delilah tricked and cut Samson's hair, but unfortunately the children wouldn't allow me to do it.

Bathe in Poo

Boys' Blunder

The easiest way for me to clean the boys is just to pop everyone into the bath at the same time.  Was-was, scrub-scrub, and pick them up one at the time and dress them while the others wait inside the bathtub playing with their bath toys.

So today is a day like any other day.  The boys are happily playing together inside the bath when suddenly Ethan pointed to Niel and said shyly: "pee pee!"  Wow, very good, Ethan! Not only he has learn to say the words, he can identify those doing it, I thought as I took a quick glance at Niel.  I notice yellowing water around him. Oh well, peeing during baths happens a lot, I'll just rinse them out later.

Then Malakai dropped the bombshell when he said calmly: "No, Ethan, that is POOOOOOOO...!"
Sure enough, Niel has done a massive poo in the bath water.
The boys start laughing ignorantly as I scrambled to get them out of the water before the poo disperse, and rinse them in the shower.

After all is asleep, it is my clean up time, I stare with unbelief at the bathtub, quarter filled with water mixed with a cup-full of poo.
Boys, oh, boys....

Twins Aggressive Affection

Smack Down!!!

I absolutely love watching Ethan and Niel play together.
It usually starts off sweet. They would toddle around the room chasing each other, their bellies run ahead of their feet.
I can hear laughter, and occasional screams. Good screams, the one we enjoy to hear.
It's a video camera moment.

But not for long….

Usually, in less than ten minutes, hugging becomes flinging.
Niel would usually grabs the Ethan around the waist, leans his head against him, grins and babbles.
Most often, Ethan responds by dropping himself to the floor laughing and let Niel sit on him, giggling.
Flinging becomes wrestling. Wrestling results in head stomping or chest crushing.
Giggles evolve into tears. I should probably stop it before it even begins.
But I can't.

With Malakai, my oldest, I would never let any kid rough-edge him when he was that young. Maybe I was over protective of a boy? Or is it just a first born syndrome?

But with Ethan and Niel it is different.
When I watch them standing there with their arms around each other, their heads together and those untamed smiles on their faces, I am reminded of their infancy. I remember when I would put them down at night crossways on opposite sides of their cot only to find them together in the middle minutes later with their heads touching. Sometimes, they would hold hands.

They don't intend to hurt each other during their rough play.
They just get carried away.
I like to think that they get too aggressive simply because of their need to be physically close to each other.
Aggressive affection. Sweet huh?!

Last Kawasaki checkup 2010

Praise Point: Niel's Update

As part of Niel’s post-Kawasaki care, these last 4 months have been filled with frequent hospital visits to monitor his health and heart condition.

Earlier this month, Niel had his routine check up and heart scan (echocardiogram and ECG) at the Children’s hospital. This check-up is a “big” milestone for Niel.

The Cardiologist found his heart condition normal with no signs of inflammation! We truly acknowledge God for this!! We were advised to continue keeping a very close eye on his physical activities, habits, and nutrition, and the doctor also assured us that the risk is quite low for Niel to develop a heart-related-condition and/or educational and developmental delays in the future.

Niel can now stop taking his medications relating the Kawasaki disease, however, there is a need for longterm maintenance to avoid atherosclerotic risk factors. From now on, his routine check- up will be every 2-3 years (instead of every 3 weeks).

We are extremely grateful to God and know that this is all through prayers and the support our friends and family have given us.

2 March 2010

**Atherosclerotic: Pertaining to atherosclerosis, the process of progressive thickening and hardening of the walls of arteries from fat deposits on their inner lining.

Niel's 1st Step

Power of Bubbles...


One of my twins, Niel, wasn’t walking at 16 months old. He didn’t seem to be too interested in standing up, or learning how to walk. He didn’t enjoy being assisted to walk or held up by the hands.

Twin brother Ethan has started to walk months before. He has gone through the standard stages of cruising by 12 months old, standing alone from a pull up position, standing alone from a squat, standing to observe, taking the first step on his own, and progressively increase the number of steps before losing balance. The process was months from the first time he stands on his own to being called officially a ‘toddler’, but we can see progress every week.

It’s a lot of pressure being a twin, one is continuously compared to the sibling for development, performance, and physical achievements. Though I vowed not to do this to them before they were born, it is certainly hard not to benchmark each other as they progress.

I was never worried about my little Niel before. He is always the bright one, always showing interest, alert and responsive his surroundings. He has always been the first to reach his developmental milestones before he contracted Kawasaki disease. Now Ethan seems to be months ahead of Niel; Niel is yet to toddle, repeat words from a book, able to nod and say ‘no’ in response to a question. Now I have valid reasons of getting quite worried about Niel. He was breech, and some statistics show breech twins may have hips problems. He had Kawasaki, and statistics also shows that kids that contracted Kawasaki may have developmental and learning delays.

My concern about Niel’s lack of interest in standing up, lead our GP to order a hip scan for Niel. The scan turns out normal, so the doctor assured me that it is certainly too early to worry at this stage; many children starts to walk at 18 months. Children will walk when they are ready, certainly right that is.

It was Thursday morning, and its library rhyme time for my kids. Niel loves Rhyme Time sessions, he is too young to join in the action, but would happily sit through book reading and watch others sing action rhymes. When the session is over, the cheerful librarian gave out bottles of bubbles for everyone to blow indoors. Niel squealed in excitement as he watched bubbles fill the room. He quickly crawled to find a good spot, kneeled and stretched his hands up to catch the floating bubbles. And then it happened: in his excitement, he stood up and took 3 steps toddling to catch a flying bubble. I held back tears, I am so thankful not to miss this, to be able to see his first steps in the midst of a crowd of energized children. He stood up again, this time I got Malakai to witness his baby brother’s first steps, and we counted together: 1…2…3…4…5…6, “Niel, you’re walking!!!” I shouted to him. He stopped in his tracks, turned around, saw us watching him, he looked down on his feet, realize that he’s standing up, and quickly get down on the floor and crawled back to us with a biggest grin on his face.

Three days later, Niel has officially become a toddler by performance. He would always stand and toddle to move around the house. True, he didn’t go through the traditional phases. My little Niel has lead me to believe he’s not interested in standing, and unexpectedly, in his own time, he just stood up and walk. That’s my Niel. Yes, children will walk in their own time. When they do, there’s no way of stopping them!

Plagiocephaly: Before and After

Almost perfect....

At his 3 months follow-up check, we can already see great improvements to the shape of his head. It is still not rounded, but I was already happy with the shape of his head. The September weather has started to get warmer, and Niel’s sweat collated inside his helmet made his head releases an odour similar to those of smelly feet. We decided to discontinue the therapy then. We realize that his head shape put probably stay pretty much as it is when we decided to take the helmet off, but I hope he’ll have more hair than his dad, and that would cover up any imperfections.

The photo on the top is taken before the helmet therapy at 7 months old. On the left is Niel at 15 months old. Not too bad for 3 months worth of helmet wearing… I personally think that he is gorgeous, but then, I am his mom. :)

Kawasaki Disease

Promise to be better...

One of the most heartbreaking event in my life is when my little Niel was diagnosed with a rare Kawasaki disease, which is an inflammation of blood vessels. For those of you with babies experiencing fevers longer than 3 days, despite what your GP advises, I would surely urge that you take them directly to the hospital for emergency care.

A week after his 12months immunization, Niel experienced a fever, which is quite a normal experience for most children. After 3 days, instead of getting better, the rim of his eyes turned blot-shot red. Our GP decided to give medication for conjunctivitis and antibiotics to treat his fever and eyes. 2 days passed without any improvement, his fever was constantly well above 39’c, the whites of his eyes turned pink, and now the knuckles of his hands are also reddish. Niel has stopped eating or taking his bottles all together. The only way we can get fluid into him was through a medicine dropper. He has grown so weak, that as soon as we sit him up, he topples and fall on his side with no effort on getting back up.

We then took him to the Children’s Hospital (5 days of fever), where he was put on a drip straight away to keep his fluids up. His lips were chapping and turned blood red as well. His eye lids are sore and swollen, the skin on it starts to chaff. It was a very miserable sight.

All I can feel was remorse and guilt that this happen to him. This is the little boy that still wakes me up at night, this is the boy that demands constant supervision, this is the boy that takes over an hour to feed. I felt very guilty for the times that I was impatient with him, the times when I wouldn’t get out of my bed for the fourth time in the night, the times I let him cry in his cot, the times I would yell at him out of anger, and most of all- for all the times that I wanted to quit. As I spend my teary nights in the ward, I kept praying to God to preserve His life, heal him completely, and give me the chance to be a better Mum for him.

November 2009

Plagiocephaly Helmet Fitting

Especially for Made for Me...

For those of you with a child just prescribed with a helmet therapy and stumble upon this blog wanting to know how the custom made helmet is made, I’ll try my best to describe our meeting with the Orthotist. I suppose different Orthotist practice will have different procedure in place, but this is how they did it with Niel (was 7 months old then) at the Children’s Hospital.

First, both Niel and myself was given a white scrubs apron to wear and protect our clothes, then I was instructed to so sit on a stool with Niel on my lap facing forward. His head, from the back of his neck to his forehead, was then wrapped with a cling wrap so the plaster wouldn’t get stuck on his hair later. Next, a gauge material soaked in the molding plaster is wrapped around his head over the clingwrap. The Orthotist has pre-cut the gauge so that the front part would just sit on his eyebrows, while his ears and the top part of his neck and the back of his head is all enclosed within the plastered gauge. We waited a few minutes for the plaster to set, while Niel is distracted with an activity toy in my hands. Once this is set, the Orthotist carefully mark the plaster where Niel’s ears are placed and other markings to guide him which part of the head needs correcting. This whole procedure didn’t take more than 15 minutes.

This plaster will be used to make a “dummy head” of Niel, and the fiber sheet will be molded around it to make the helmet. We are also given choices to personalize the helmet from a selection of colours and patterns. I chose plain light blue for Niel.

A week later, the helmet was done and ready for our first fitting. It is lined with foam on the inside to protect the skin from the plastic. The helmet opens at the side and held together using Velcro. Niel’s head was flat at the back, so the back part of the helmet didn’t touch his head. The helmet doesn’t alter his current head shape, but made space for where he should grow into. This is something that he is expected to wear 23 hours daily until 6 weeks after he started walking.
Why six weeks after he started walking? The Orthotist explained that he will go into a rapid growth spurt at that time, so we would definitely like to capture that head growth with the helmet.
Little did we know that today, at 16 months old, Niel hasn’t quite start walking yet… more on this later.

Fearless helmet

Fearless

Perhaps it was once a childhood fantasy. At one stage or another one have dreamt of being a super hero, or in my case, being their beautiful fragile lover. We once dream of having something that gives us magical or superpowers and become invincible.

If anyone believes in lucky strike, I have seen it in action with the twins. I have never seen anyone get so out of luck.

If the two boys are racing under the table, Niel will be the one that bumps his head. If Malakai throws his toy across the room and hits a baby on the head, it’s got to be Niel’s head that got hit. If a baby jumps off the nappy changing table, it will be Niel that does it. Niel has fallen off the bed and nose landed on a toy truck that turns his nose bright red for a week by 8 months old. If his Dad accidentally bumps a baby’s head on the car’s door, it just happens to be Niel’s head. If by chance, someone’s elbow hit a baby, it’s Niel that got hit. Guess which baby is the one that manages to crawl into the kitchen and spill garbage on himself? If there are two babies in the uterus, guess which baby is breech and got his head stuck under Mum’s ribs?

Niel.

Nevertheless, Niel is fearless. Exciting things happens to those seeks adventure!
Now his helmet actually makes him even more fearless than ever.

No more hesitation when trying to reach for a toy under the table, Niel will now always win toy wrestling with big twin brother Ethan. If a space is too small for two, Niel would just jump in there, attacking everyone and everything with his protected head. Fearless. That is my Niel.

Cranial molding helmet

Sleeping with Helmet

It has been 3 days since Niel’s cranial-molding-helmet fitting done at the Children Hospital’s Orthotics. The first two days was simply an introductory period where the helmet just needs to be on for two hours and taken off for two hours throughout the day. That first two days went without any dramas. Niel goes about his day and does not seem to notice the new contraption his head.

I was excited, and searched around the internet trying to find ideas on how to “dress up” the helmet. I thought about spray painting it or just draw stars with a permanent marker, but I was worried if the paint would smear at the end and I would regret trying to decorate it. In the end, I think the safest option is to get stickers for it, when I find one.

Niel’s head was wet with sweat; the helmet really does keep the heat in. Niel doesn’t complain, but I feel terrible for wanting him to wear it, the presence of his sweat made it seems uncomfortable.

The Orthotist have advised to take layers of his jackets off during the day, and also reduce the layers of blanket at night when he has his helmet on. He also assured me that soon, Niel’s body will adjust to it and will stop excreting too much sweat from his head. I was wondering how that works, will I be able to fight the winter chills if I am wearing nothing on my body, but sports a massive polar-bear-fleece hat on my head? I am not convinced.

I am unsure on how long this adjustment period is, but based on other mothers’ experience, it may take a few weeks.

After two days of introductory period, the Orthotist examined the red spots on Niel’s scalp caused by the pressure from the helmet. As everything is as it should be, he then prescribed that the helmet is to be worn 23 hours a day.

I take his helmet off for about 10 minutes every hour, to air it out. It is usually soaking with sweat, but by the end of the day, the amount of sweat has greatly reduced. I was glad that perhaps, he’s adjusting really well.

When I put him down for his night time sleep, I have anticipated that we would need to take his helmet off later to wipe dry his head. True enough, two hours later, he woke up crying and I took his helmet off for a few minutes before putting it back on and patting him to sleep again. The helmet is big change to him, so letting him cry it out would be unfair. When he woke up again at midnight, I decided to just keep it off for the rest of the night. Few hours tonight have been an improvement. However, Niel has never been a good sleeper to start with; he would still wake several times even without his helmet. Nevertheless, I still feel bad for wanting him to wear the helmet and go through this.

I hope I am doing this in his best interest. When he goes to school later, his classmates will not tease him for his flat head. Perhaps he will thank me when he is older, because he can then choose any variety of hairstyles, because anything will look good on his nice round head then.

Flat Head

What did you say about my
Big Flat head?

My younger twin boy, Niel, was heads up during pregnancy. His head in the uterus was pressed against my ribs, and was born with a very wide head. I was advised that this will fix itself after time, if he rolls his head to the sides when he sleeps, but I must make sure that he turns equally, so it will not become lopsided as well.

At 4 months old, we noticed that his head shape got worse as his temples start to grow out, side ways, and the back of his head was completely flat. He doesn’t turn his head much when he sleeps, as his head got flatter, he enjoys sleeping on the flat spot more and more. My GP continue to assure us that it will fix itself when he starts rolling, so we waited another couple of months, also trying to keep him off the flat spot as much as we can by wedging and tilting his cot to one side. When he is 8 months old, we finally got an appointment at the Plagiocephaly clinic of the Royal Children Hospital, and Niel was prescribed with a helmet therapy.

I have done my homework and researched about the helmet to prepare myself. I saw photos of children wearing them, what results they got, how it fixed their heads, and so on. We did anticipate that there will be a tough adjustment period when he starts putting it on but we decided to will stick with it hoping we are doing what is best for him. Hopefully when he is older, and his friends at school are not teasing head shape, he will thank us for doing this.

The first appointment to the Orthotist was fun. Niel sat on my lap, both of us wearing a full body apron so we will not plaster cast on our clothes. Next, the Orthotist wrap a piece of clingwrap around the back of his head from ear to ear, and closed around his forehead. This will help to keep his hair clean from the plaster later. A piece of white stocking like material then placed on his head, a big hole was already cut out of it for his face. The Orthotist mark the stocking where Niel’s ears are and where he will want to put pressure points on, etc. Then, he wrapped the stocking with a long piece of gauge already soaked with plaster. After a few minutes the plaster set, and the mould was taken off. The Orthotist will use this negative mold to create a custom fit helmet for Niel.

The room where we did the casting was decorated with posters of cartoon characters and superheroes who have unusual shaped heads or helmets. It was clever and smart, and didn’t look bad at all. When I get to pick a colour and pattern, we settled for a plain light blue colour. I will be able to personalize it later myself (yeah, right!). As we leave the reception after making another appointment the next week, we were completely surprised that the helmet did not cost us a cent.