My Baby

My little boy has been my source of joy these past days. One time he imitated my Little Teapot action while dancing. At another time, he did the actions while I sang “I have two hands...” Earlier, he opened and closed his hands when he heard me sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to him. For a while, I can only wonder if he’s learning or absorbing all the action songs I’m performing in front of him. Now, I’m getting my rewards! He’s so cute and adorable as I watch him do the actions for the songs.

Last night, my husband asked when our son would “really” start talking. Then, we agreed that maybe before he turns two years old or when he turns two. This afternoon, Yanthy surprised me when he said the word “baby” very clearly for the first time. Yanthy can already identify a lot of objects whether in real life or in books and magazines. But he can’t articulate a lot of them very clearly. Most of the time, he says the first syllable only of the word or something that sounds like it. Or in the case of most animals, he imitates the sounds that they make. This afternoon, he repeatedly said “baby” as he pointed at the pictures of babies in the magazine I was reading. He was playing in his crib and when he saw me read a magazine, he walked towards me. I was pleasantly surprised to hear him say the word “baby” very clearly. I encouraged him by praising him and making a conversation with him. I said, “Yanthy is my baby.” He surprised me again when he said, “my baby.” I then asked him, “Who is my baby?” He gamely touched his chest as if saying me. Wow! This is the first time I heard him say two different words as if using phrases to communicate. Before, he would only use one word either repeatedly or say a word and add “momma” or “daddy.” Like he would say, “Momma... key...” Then he would pull me towards where we keep our keys to tell me that he wants me to get them for him. This time, it was different!

This is an exciting time for us! I’m excited to teach him nursery rhymes, songs and poems. I’m excited to hear him read. As early as a few months old, I already saw in him an interest in books. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would grow to be a bookworm like me. Ahhh... Slowly but surely, I’m rewarded for the many times I’ve talked, danced and sang to him. I realized that being a parent (especially a mom) is a lot similar to being a farmer. It takes a while before you get to see results on top of the soil. It can be challenging sometimes when you don’t see anything happening yet. But the truth is that growth is happening underneath the surface. Your plant or crop is growing roots. Then, slowly that growth is manifested upwards when it starts to grow a stem, leaf, trunk and fruits eventually.
This same principle applies to toddlers like my son. In the beginning, they just absorb all that’s around them through their five senses. Then, one day they start talking and you’d realize that they had been paying attention to a lot of things.

Thank you, Yanthy, for making my day very memorable! I’m looking forward to have many wonderful conversations with you in the future. Until then, Mommy would patiently teach you and take baby steps with you. I love you very much, son!

TG
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Carrying Him Always in My Heart

At first I felt relieved that I wouldn’t be carrying Yanthy for the meantime. He’s quite heavy now and my low back pains are killing me. I was advised recently by the doctor to refrain from lifting or carrying anything that’s heavy and that includes my baby. He also instructed me to refrain from bending or squatting. I should not sit or stand too long without changing my position every now and then to help my back muscles to heal and to prevent further damage.

My mom took over in taking care of Yanthy these past days. Thankfully, we found a new maid. Thus, I was relieved as well from doing household chores. Yanthy, however, sometimes insists to be carried by me. He simply was so used to that. It made me sad in the beginning to see him cry because I didn’t carry him. It broke my heart to see his tears falling down his cheeks while repeatedly saying, “Mom... Mom...” To comfort him, I would say, “Mommy would just embrace Yanthy since I can’t carry you.” Then, we would distract him with something else like his toys or objects in the house that he finds interesting. Eventually, his crying would stop.

It’s almost a week now since my doctor advised me of the things I can’t do for the meantime. Yanthy doesn’t cry as much or doesn’t cry anymore sometimes when he wants me to carry him and I refuse him and tell him that his grandma or our maid would carry him instead. I think he has gotten used to it somehow.

But there’s something that I realized as of late. I miss carrying Yanthy in my arms. I miss lifting him and putting him in my lap. I miss dancing with him cheek to cheek. And how can I not squat or bend whenever I am near my son? It’s almost impossible. He’s still small. I forget a lot of times that I shouldn’t be doing these things. Like Yanthy, I’m so used to being with him, doing almost anything with him. But I also know that I need to heed my doctor’s advice so I would be back in the pink of health soon. That would mean I can carry him again and there wouldn’t be as much limitations as there are now when I play with him again.

I may not be able to carry Yanthy physically these days. But I know that I carry him in my heart always. He may not understand fully now why Mommy has to temporarily stop carrying him. But I’m confident that when he grows up and I’m too old and frail, because of the strong bond that we share, he would have the confidence to think that Mom carries him always in her heart.

TG
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Yanthy’s Ordeal was My Ordeal Also

It started on a Monday evening. Yanthy had slight fever so I gave him biogesic for children. I thought that it’s just due to his colds. His pediatrician prescribed a new medicine (Alnix) because his colds had been there for a number of days now even though he has been taking Nasatapp. I made a to-do alarm in my cellphone that we’re going to buy Alnix later. Then, off we went to attend a Christmas party. But as the party progressed, his fever progressed as well. We left the party after dinner and a few games, bought medicines again and headed for home. He was burning hot with fever by the time we reached our condo. My husband checked his temperature and found out it was almost 40 degrees Celsius. We gave him a sponge bath until his temperature went down a bit. We continued to monitor his temperature and gave him paracetamol Biogesic every four hours. We brought him to the pediatrician the following day since his high fever was recurring. It’s the first time he had a fever that high. The pediatrician said he has tonsillitis so she prescribed an antibiotic (Himox). It was his first time to take antibiotics.

We thought that after being given an antibiotic Yanthy would be fine. But we were wrong. Two days after he took his antibiotic, he started to have diarrhea. We informed his doctor again and we were prescribed erceflora and glucolite to prevent dehydration. His diarrhea persisted, though and to make matters worse, he started to have diaper rash. It was very painful for him every time we would clean his bottom because it was all red. There were times when I would cry with him as I clean his bottom and change his diapers. I would silently pray for his healing and that God would give me the pain instead and spare my child from further suffering. The diaper cream we used after every diaper change helped to remove the diaper rash but it kept coming back due to persistent diarrhea. Yanthy started to lose weight. Sometimes he would poop as many as 8-9 times a day. It was very scary. It was a good thing that he continued to eat and breastfeed from me. After around 4 days of continuous fever and diarrhea, his pediatrician instructed that Yanthy undergoes CBC and fecalysis (stool exam). We were very grateful when we got the CBC result and found out that it was not dengue. He had amoeba however. So another antibiotic (Flagyl) was prescribed to combat the amoeba. His two antibiotics overlapped – one for tonsillitis and one for amoebiasis. His fever gradually left him after a few more days but he still had diarrhea. His new pediatrician said that it’s normal for the treatment of amoebiasis. She said that Yanthy needs to take antibiotics for 10 days and before the 10-day period is over, he needs to undergo another fecalysis to check if the amoeba is gone. If it’s still there, he would have to continue taking his antibiotic for four more days for a total of 14 days.

We had a hard time getting stool samples from Yanthy. We were just lucky during the first time but the succeeding times were very difficult. We kept coming back to Asian Hospital’s laboratory even during the Christmas holidays. Luckily, we were able to get a sample on his 10th day of taking antibiotics. We noticed however that although his diarhea episodes were less frequent, he developed a cough. So we brought him to an EENT this time who prescribed another antibiotic (Augmentin).

When we got the result of his second fecalysis, we found out that there are still traces of amoeba so we continued his antibiotic against amoeba together with the antibiotic for his cough. This is the second time that his antibiotic overlapped.

Thank God, his cough and diarrhea stopped after a few more days of taking medicines. I thought that our ordeal was over so we chose to celebrate by pushing through with our family outing at Casa Santa. We were supposed to go there either before Christmas or right after Christmas but since Yanthy got sick, we postponed it. We were glad that it was still open until the New Year so we went there armed with our new digital camera and ready smiles.

Just a couple of days after we thought that Yanthy is all healed, Yanthy had fever again. We brought him again to the pediatrician who gave another medicine (Remidril) for colds. He got healed after 5 days of taking the medicine. But there’s another problem that surfaced. He now has crusting on his eyes. It started with his left eye until even his right eye developed excessive crusting. So we applied Erythromycin ointment on his eyes to combat the infection.

In just a span of four (4) weeks, Yanthy took four different kinds of antibiotics. That does not include the different cold/antihistamine medicines prescribed to combat his colds. My poor baby.

I thought that Yanthy’s sicknesses will all be gone by New Year’s time but I was wrong. Today, all I wish is that he’d be in the pink of health again and that his ordeal would soon be over because his ordeal is my ordeal as well. I pray that God would have mercy on my little boy and heal him completely.