I couldn’t get my son to go to nursery today so I took him back home, I tried giving him candies bas makoo fayda! Maybe he was sleepy, anyways I’m not taking him tomorrow because the teacher told me there’s an outing for the older kids and the little kids will stay on their own at the nursery, so I’ll let him rest for a day or two until he makes up his mind. I hope he’ll start going again but what if he still doesn’t want to go? how can I make him want to go?

I still didn’t cut Hassan off his pacifier but I’m working on toilet training. I have to say that the nursery played a huge role in helping me out with this one. So there’s some progress, I guess. Why am I having a hard time enforcing my rules? Kids are so funny, feed them candy and watch them do the candy dance or mashyat alhalawa on their tip toes, moving their head from side to side. It’s cute.

New words:

Kullo-meaning all. He learned this from the nursery

Batli Bab*pleading*-let go of me, esp. if I’m holding him tightly

Zaytoon-olives

Abee Dactoor-I need a doctor

Mama gageena-my mom, I don’t know where in the world he got this from??

Abee Ajeenaa-dough

Baba naami-as in my dad Raami

Last but not least, he goes “beep beep” when he needs us to get out of his way, he probably thinks he’s a car

Usually I get things done before Eid in like 2-3 days. This Eid I’ve spent the first day in the hospital and the second I so hope I’m going to spend it going from one salon to another *fingers crossed* I hope they’re not closed for Eid!!

Plus Hassan didn’t get his haircut yet. But thanks to Allah he only got a fever before he slept last night. I still need to wash some clothes for tomorrow because everything was put on hold until I got back from the hospital. I’m still looking forward to showing off my new Eid clothes!

Happy be-lated Eid …

Why I was way away? One thing that will always keep me from posting is Hassan. On his first week to nursery he had a cold and on Thursday he didn’t go but I noticed he was showing symptoms on Wednesday noon time. His cold lasted a few days, about 4 days long. Then all symptoms were gone so I sent him back to nursery the following week. He only attended two days then started having a runny nose again and the next day he got a fever upto 38.5. I took Tuesday off to take him to hospital, though I ended having 3 days off.  Anyways he was prescribed Augmentin because this time his doctor suspected Otitis Media. The problem was everytime I tried to get Hassan to take his medicine he would spit it all out. His fever wasn’t getting any better by night time, it was going up to 39 degrees so I decided it would be better if he took an antibiotic shot.

The doctor decided to give him an antibiotic called ceftriaxone through IV. It was his first IV ever. It didn’t go too well. Hassan cried so much and wouldn’t sit down but we tried our best to occupy him with other stuff, it worked just until he got his dose. We left. That night his fever wouldn’t respond to any suppositories I gave him. I must’ve given him about 4 suppositories that day, plus advil once.

The 2nd day was the worst. His fever wouldn’t go down at all. It stayed at 39 degrees from noon time up to 7-8pm. I gave him two suppositories that day and showered him several times, nothing worked to lower his fever. It got so worse that at 7pm it reached 40 degrees, or so it did, if my calculations were right. I freaked out. Took him to the clinic next to home, and the nurse there didn’t help us out, she just stared at us, didn’t even speak Arabic nor English. We lowered his temp. to about 39 degrees by washing him under the tap water, plus we applied cold compresses to his head and back. My son peed on the floor and they didn’t even call the cleaning lady to mop the floors. The treating doctor didn’t think there was anything wrong with him, we didn’t even bother to take his prescribtion. I really felt like arguing with him but Rami pulled me away in the nick of time. We left that horrible place at once, the only reason we went there in the 1st place was because we worried traffic would get bad on our way to a private hospital, we just didn’t want to risk it.

After that we headed to Dar Al-Shifa. His doctor admitted him for the night, which is his first time too but we ended up staying for two nights because his fever wouldn’t go down, he was on IV for 24 hours. Only today it went down to 38-38.5. The doctor confirmed that he had a viral infection but continued the antibiotics for 3 days to treat his ears and at first he even suspected Roseola. We were discharged today, I’m so glad we were, thanks to Allah. I hated my stay there. The food was not tasty and I didn’t like their staff at all. Even Hassan was depressed, he wouldn’t eat because he was so homesick from day one. The nurses were not even taking accurate temp. readings. I got so annoyed at them. I’d always request for an armpit theremometer but they end up getting me an ear theremometer. The only good thing about the place is his doctor, he’s just excellent at what he does. Today is his 5th day and his fever is going down gradually, at long last it’s responding to medication.

What a gift Hassan passed on to me, Teresa, another housemaid and now my mom. I’m so considering taking him out, problem paid 3 months in advance.

Pics later.

Tip 1: never leave your kid wearing wet clothes if they had a fever because it might trap the air inside and only make his fever worse.

Tip 2: Never give your child more than one medication at a time, esp advil and tylenol. Each have to be given at different intervals.

It’s his first week, actually it’s his 3rd day only and already he got a cold. I had a feeling since yesterday because he was acting real cranky, now he’s showing all the symptoms. I still don’t know whether I should let him rest tomorrow or not. I’ve seen a lot of parents still take their kids to the nursery in spite of their colds.

Today is Hassan’s first day at the nursery. All I can say it all went well, elhamdillah. I’m so proud of my baby. I just want to thank everyone who helped me find the right nursery. Choosing one wasn’t easy because there’s so many to choose from that it made so hard for me to decide, but in the end I decided the location is much more important. I’ll post his pics later.

I wasn’t so sure when I thought Hassan was over his fears of getting a haircut when I took him last time to be specific on 18th/08/07. But I’m so proud to say that he’s so over the haircut-crying phase, didn’t shed a tear he just sat there watching Barney and with that being mentioned, my whole family are starting to complain about Barney. My mom is trying her best to find other shows for him lol. 

I can’t even get Barney’s songs out of my head. One particular song though that I can’t get out of my head and it goes like this over and over again in my head: “yumyum tortilla, yumyum pita bread, yumyum bagel, yumyum white bread, yumyum poppernickle (opps I mean pumpernickle), poppernickle pumpernickle bread, where’s my poppernickle pumpernickle?” (Thanks Ali) The more I think about this song the more I feel hungry!

What matters more now is that I got an early b-day gift which arrived sometime last week and it’s my first IBM laptop, yay! I’ve hadlike two other laptops before but both were not mine, the first was my dad’s and the second was Rami’s, so now I really have one all for myself. My iPod nano arrived the day before yesterday and it’s my first too. I’m not sure if this is another birthday gift from Rami and so far I like both gifts very much.