random shots of lil Em

I realised I have not been updating photos of lil Em lately. Guilty. It's an accumulation of many things, one of which is the fact that I haven't been photographing her as much. I know I should but didn't get around to get it done. From this lack of practise, I feel a little rustier with my camera now. **shudder**..I should really get that picture-grabbing mode back...pronto!!

Anyway, here are some random shots I took a while back. I've just picked them..urm, quite randomly for this post. In no particular order, a couple of her post 1 year old :-) :

more changes

So, hubby went into work this morning to get some things done before heading out to the hospital to get his mom. MIL spent the night with FIL last night but from what I heard, neither could sleep because they had a very chatty neighbor. That's the thing with a 4-bed room, if any one of your neighbors decides that it's too early for bed, nobody sleeps! The old patient was calling out for the nurses like 100 times and kept on talking really loudly in the middle of the night, presumable about his company's business : supplying steel for steel building. It got so bad that the nurses had to wheel him out of the room so the rest could sleep. Poor fella.

Hubby left work around lunchtime so he could bring MIL home to change, shower and simply get some rest. She needed it badly cos when she was at our place on Sunday, she hardly slept a wink. She hardly ate too; her mind pre-occupied with my FIL. Can't exactly blame her because he is after all close to 80. But, thankfully, everything went well and according to hubby, he seemed much better today after the surgery. Guess FIL is just so so glad that it's over.

But, we're still waiting for results of certain tests he took. Hubby asked for a thorough check-up on his dad. Just to be sure. So far, we've found that he has cataracts. He must've had it for a while now but you know, that's the thing with him; he doesn't want to get anything checked. I kinda feel that he's just scared...scared to know reality I guess. And knowing him, he just doesn't want to worry anyone, not wanting to trouble anyone. Just like that night, he couldn't urinate the whole night and yet at 4am in the morning, he drove out with my MIL to look for a 24-hour clinic. Can you believe this man? Later, we found out from the doc that he's not even supposed to drive with his condition!!

See what I mean about a 'change' coming about. I don't think we can leave them alone any longer because MIL doesn't know how to drive. But, even if she did, they can't be alone. I don't want to speculate about what we're going to do because we haven't talked about it yet. We'll probably discuss it with them later. I won't lie to you but it's all a little unnerving. I honestly don't know how to care for the elders. Sometimes, I don't even know how to take care of myself. Know what I mean? OK...I am thinking too much, too far ahead. I shall just focus on the kids first....but I can't help it!!

the weekend of change

It all started on Friday. What we thought was a routine end of the week, turned out to be a worrisome one for the whole family.

My FIL had surgery today to remove stones in his bladder.

I don't even know where to begin. It just happened all of a sudden. When we went home from PIL's after dinner on Friday, he was fine but on Saturday morning, MIL called and told us to get him checked out at the hospital. Hubby did. That was on Saturday and today, he had his op. Thankfully, the surgery went well. No complications whatsoever. It was meant to be a minor medical procedure but because of his age, it didn't come out as one. It took the docs more than 2 hours to get it done. Of course, they also had to shave off part of his enlarged prostate which was blocking his urinary tract causing the stones. But still, it felt like such a long time.

I just feel so much for hubby. He has to be strong for both his mom and his dad. He's doing a fantastic job thus far. If it was me, I would've collapsed on my Moen kitchen faucets. I've had to deal with the kids while he's been away tending to his parents and only coming home at night. I was able to sneak out for a while to visit my FIL this afternoon while my mom watched both girls. So, thank God for my parents; they have been a big big help to me the past weekend.

Gosh..I'm knackered...I'll have to continue this tomorrow.

is your child a hoarder?

Mine is.

Ash loves to hoard stuff. I'm not sure she's suffering from any disorder but it's her habit - hoarding. SHe'll take whatever she finds interesting from my mom's place, from my PIL and even from the library. Once she brought home a used eraser some kid left at the library. My MIL literally sterilize the poor beat up eraser at home before letting her play with it further. I'm not sure if she knew or knows how to use one but somehow that little jack-in-the-box illustration on it fascinated her. So much so that she cried her eyes out when we forgot to pack it home with us when we left for home from MIL's. She was trying to describe to us what we forgot all the way home, but we just didn't understand her. I think that made her even more frustrated resulting more cries.

When we got home, we called MIL immediately if they had bought her anything new or anything old that she discovered (MIL's home is like treasure island to Ash) while she was there during the day. MIL hadn't the faintest idea. Ash was still sobbing. 20 minutes later, MIL called us back and told us yes, there's this eraser that she picked up and was fiddling with it the whole day. OK...so we told MIL to hold on to it and not let it escape. We went back to sobbing Ash and told her the eraser was safe with MIL and that MIL will take good care of it and that we'll bring her to MIL the next day so she could have her eraser back.

That episode happened about a month back. Ash hasn't asked for the eraser since. But, we can't throw it out or donate it because Ash will ask for it one day and I don't really wanna be caught dead trying to think of a reason to tell her. Trust me, because she will!!!