New Kid On The Blog

2-Feb-2010:

You know, whenever we had snacks such as cookies, crackers, ice-cream, rojak or even chicken nuggets, my MIL would tell my nephews not to eat (so much), otherwise they will get sick. She would say the same thing to Dom as well, except when we, the parents were there. I wanted to tell her, nonsense, a few cookies won't make them sick. Except very often, they DID fall sick, for example after coming back from McDonald's. I was tempted to be smug about it because Dom had never fallen sick since we got back from the UK, but then I was afraid that I'll jinx it. Finally one day, we were having left-over Pringles from my office pot-luck lunch when Joe said "He eats so much, he will fall sick", and I replied "He won't, only you will". And guess what, one or two days later, Dom developed a fever! That ought to teach me a lesson!

Whenever Dom had a fever, it usually subsides within one day but this time he's been having fever, cough, sore throat and blocked nose for 3 days now. Matters made worse when Saimun kept telling me to make sure it wasn't dengue. Although I was 90% sure it wasn't dengue but a mother can never be too careful. Besides, the MIL kept nagging me to bring Dom to the doctor. All these years when we were in London, we never took Dom to the doctor because he had a fever. Not even when he had a full blown flu and was terribly ill when we were in Germany. All the time, he recovered on his own without any treatment and it's not like a common cold or flu can be treated, am I right?

Anyway, with much nagging (well intended ones, by the way) and a lot of concerns, I finally took Dom to the clinic this morning (after 3 days of fever). The doctor said it looks like just a normal cold and he prescribed neurofen, cough mixture and decongestant for his blocked nose. He said that "it's only been 3 days", but just in case there is bacteria infection, he prescribed anti-biotics as well but advised me to only give it to him if his fever doesn't go away in the next 2 days.

Dom has been absent from school for 2 days now and according to Sern, he will have A LOT of homework when he goes back. Hah! A LOT of homework means work for me. Last Friday, when I checked Dom's school bag, his "homework pouch" was full, but fortunately there was no homework for me because he had already finished them all. Now, I finally understand why during the orientation, some parents requested for "no homework".

After about 1 month in this new school, I think Dom has learnt a great deal. He told us that he learnt Chinese in school and that "Chinese is very, very hard, you know!". He drew an 'l' in the air and said "shu". "Do you know what is shu?", he asked. His daddy said, "Err ... book?" Hahaha! He also learns Malay in school. So far, he only knows "besar"and "kecil", but he could have learnt more words that we're not aware of. Now that I'm thinking about this multi-lingual thing in Malaysia, I think it is all wrong. I was talking to a friend recently. She was Chinese educated but she doesn't understand a lot of Chinese words and can't converse in Chinese business terms, which is very different from normal day-to-day conversation, according to her. And she certainly can't write any professional or business documents in Chinese. Further to that, her English is full of grammatical errors (no offense) and she admitted herself that she will never in a million years write an article in Malay. I think all Malaysians should just pick one language and be really good in that language. Unfortunately, no matter which language you choose to master, you're still required to pass Malay. It's good to know more than one language but I think one should really work to master one of them.

Dom's drawing and writing have improved a lot too. He now draws stuffs that I actually think are nice. His colouring finally makes sense too. However, Saimun mentioned that every kid can learn writing, drawing, reading and maths. It just takes practice. He would rather Dom engage in more fun activities that build his confidence and other non-academic skills.

Also, before I forget, he has finally stopped putting on his shirt front to back.

# posted by Skye @ 9:18 pm