Lucas at 25 months

Lucas is coming to 25 months old. At this age, he now knows how to get out of his highchair AND his playpen, which makes life more difficult for me when I want to clean the floors without his "help". Lucas also likes to choose his shirts to wear for the day - he does that by taking any random shirt out of his drawer in the mornings. After taking the shirt out, he opens the door and runs to the salon for a dose of early morning cartoon. Wednesday mornings are his favourite as he gets to watch Mickey and friends.
Lucas also likes to do things for himself, including climbing up the TV cabinet and trying to change the DVD. He knows how to switch on the TV and switches it off when he doesn't like whatever is showing including mama & papa's TV shows...

At 25 months, Lucas is still taking afternoon naps though his naps are taken later in the day now (which makes creche on Thursday afternoons pointless, as he goes there to sleep...). He still loves his baby cereal which I mix with fruit. Lucas loves Bak Kut Teh with rice, pizza, of course(!!!), macaroni with cheese and pasta sauce. He still refuses to drink anything but milk and water and loves his Milka chocolate. Since he loves chocolate so much, we decided to but some Nutella to see if Lucas likes it. Apparently in France every child and teen eats Nutella, like its some kind of staple food.

At 25 months, Lucas still loves his "lovey"! When I tried to take it away from him a few weeks ago and told him before his 2nd birthday that he has to do without it, he started getting more attached to the pacifier than before. I tried to hide his lovey and he turned the apartment upside down looking for it. I cut off the tops of the lovey, but he knew it was "broken" and threw the broken ones away.
Fred says that its fine for Lucas to have his lovey as he is still a baby and he only gets it at nap time and at night. He says I should just relax and not try to force him to give up his lovey or rush to potty train him.
So, I thought it over and decided what does it matter at what age the child was when he stopped nursing or stopped taking a bottle? Or gave up the lovey, got potty trained, learned to walk, learned to pedal a bike, knew how to write or read or count to 100? Almost all of us turn out the same in the end!
So I am going to do just that - relax, enjoy Lucas at this age, let my baby be just that. Too many parents are trying to push their children to grow up way too fast!

I will wait until Lucas is ready to give up the pacifier on his own. How many adults do you see walking around with a pacifier in their mouth? None! Because they all decided at some point in childhood that they were ready to brave the world without it. Lucas' lovey is his comfort item. It helps him sleep and makes him feel safe. I hope everyone who reads this and is having lovey trouble will stop fighting the battle and let their kids be who they are.
Don't be in a hurry for your kids to grow up, because they'll only be babies once.

France National TV

I am really confused with the TV programmes here in France! 2 weeks ago I was elated to find Grey's Anatomy on national TV (and in ENGLISH)! They aired 2 episodes back to back so I finally watched the part where Dr. Hahn leaves (yay, I don't like her character much anyway) and then, poof! No more Grey's Anatomy. Really frustrating for me as I cannot download anything here in France even tho' we have a current paid Limewire account! If caught downloading anything at all, there is a hefty fine and jail term!
So bye bye Grey's Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Nip/Tuck, Entourage... AND no movie or music download either so I have to rely on the nice, nice frens I have in KL sending me DVDs and updating me on the latest music!!!!!
At least I still manage to watch Desperate HW and Prison Break via M6 replay...

Daylight saving & Gilles' visit

Daylight saving started yesterday. We had to turn time back 1 hour, so I guess we guess we gained an hour. Lucas must have thought it was his lucky day, going to bed at 9 pm according to his body clock!!!!
Last night we had dinner at 6 pm as we were not used to the change in time yet, and the sun set completely at 630pm. This morning Lucas woke up at 730 am (which is actually 830 am according to our body clock)

As the apartment is so small and we have an acute lack of closet space, this morning I started to put away the summer clothes to make space for the warmer clothes. I put away shoes that I will not be wearing for the next 6 months or so, my heeled shoes are put way back in storage as I do not know if I will ever wear them again. I am so used to wearing flats now, I doubt I can walk in my 3 and 4 inch heels anymore.

Lucas & I are on "holiday" today. We decided to keep Lucas away from creche for a while since he's been sick. As for me, I am on a 2 week break for All Souls Day celebration. In France
Fetes de la Toussaint is taken seriously. The living will bring flowers to the cemetary and some drive hundreds of kms to get there. School is out for 2 weeks nationwide. Like the chinese, flowers for the cemetary here are crysanthemums as well. In France one must never give crysanthemums as presents as the flowers are only for dead people! Another flower for the cemetary is the Cyclamen. I thought this flower was so pretty and nearly bought a pot for my MIL to thank her for taking care of Lucas! Fortunately, my teacher taught us all about Fetes de la Toussaint before I could commit that faux pas!

Yesterday we had Gilles, Fred's brother over for lunch. Gilles is Fred's younger brother who is under the care of the government for his schizophrenia. He has been sick since he was 13. With his meds, Gilles leads a normal life but 3 months back, Gilles had a relapse when he stopped taking his meds and had to be committed back into the hospital. Gilles always reminds me of Shaggy in Scooby Doo as he is tall and skinny. He appeared a little unkempt and Fred wanted to cut his hair for him but Gilles refused. He'd cut his hair himself and it looked like he'd used a bowl over his head and cut the hair around it. He didn't seem too well yesterday and was not very communicative. Fred's mother is trying to get Gilles transfered to Tarbes so that she can be nearer to him. Gilles has his own apartment in Pau and is being taken care of by someone appointed by the government. But obviously that someone has not been checking up on Gilles for some time or else they would have alerted the hospitals when he stopped taking his meds. Gilles said he didn't like the woozy effect the meds had on him. We also found out later that Gilles' best friend had died in a motorbike accident a few days before he stopped taking his meds.

Lucas is now singing along with Barney, humming the right notes so I know that he's not tone deaf :) He's finishing Barney's sentences like he knows what Barney is going to say next.
Today I am going to try to feed him baked beans...

Autumn

Its the end of October already. The past week has been really cold here in Tarbes. Infact, it has started snowing in the mountains at 1800 metres. 2 days ago, I saw the snow up in the mountains in our balcony. Last week, it was 1 to 3 degrees in the morning when I went to my French class. By the time I get out of class, its warmed up to 10 degrees or so. The heating in our classroom is still not switched on, and I was relieved when I walked into class on Monday morning to find almost everyone shivering from the cold. I didn't want to be the only one who was bundled up in winter clothes and still feeling cold. The week before, I was one of the few in a winter coat and my English friend told me that at her house they haven't started up the heating yet and still have the windows open! I'm like, OMG, we started our heater 2 weeks already!!!!!

It's really deceiving that the sun is shining so brightly and then you step out and its still so frigging cold! I've had to go back into the apartment to change my clothes twice!
It was therefore a relief for me that the past couple of days the weather has warmed up - in the mornings its 6 - 8 degrees and by noon, its about 18 degrees. Both Lucas and I are getting used to dressing up for the cold, though "layering" takes some getting used to.
Lucas received a warm parka from Gap from his aunt in Seattle, and that will keep him toasty warm this winter. I have finished shopping for him, my last purchase was his flannel PJs. I bought a couple for myself too and they are nice and warm.

The leaves are finally turning red and falling from the trees. Fred says he is already looking forward to Spring. The days are getting shorter too - the sun rises around 830 and then sets by 7. Lucas has been getting up at his normal time of 7 or 730 am but I didn't realize that the sun is rising later so I kept telling him "go back to sleep baby, its still early!" since its still dark when he wakes me(previously the sun rose at 6 am). Poor thing must have been so confused :)

Now that Lucas has turned 2, he is talking more and is more interactive. Today at the doctor's he looked out the window and said "Coo Coo". I guess he learnt it at creche, since I didn't teach him that. He also now plays with his Melissa & Doug puzzles, where he matches half of the vehicles to the peg puzzles. Previously he couldn't recognize the colors and cars but now he can do it and then shows it to me, beaming happily at his achievement. His favourite word besides "no,no,no" is "again". His favourite cartoon right now is Kung Fu Panda (thanks to his Ah Yee who sent it). Lucas can now finish his milk bottle and then brings the bottle to mama to wash, he also wakes up and takes a shirt out of his drawer and brings it to mama to wear it for him. Lucas can take his shoes out of the closet when he knows we are going out and goes down the stairs holding mama's hand.

Lucas' urine test came back normal

My last post was a week ago. A lot has happened in that week. After rushing Lucas into the hospital with high fever where they did a urine test on him, we got the results back which told us that Lucas had a high level of sugar in his blood. We had to go back to the hospital to get his Xray and then bring Lucas to the family doctor with the urine results. The doctor was concerned but told me that maybe its because of Lucas' stress level that his blood sugar shot up, as he was prodded on and checked for his ears, throat, eyes, Xray, heartbeat, blood pressure - all by a total stranger in a new unfamiliar place. Furthermore he was already unwell and throwing up, he would have felt terrified at what was happening to him. He then did a quick blood test just to check Lucas' sugar level and it was normal. However, he ordered another round of urine test to make sure and that test came back as normal - Praise God! The 2nd urine test showed that Lucas has a urine infection, therefore the doctor put him back on antibiotics for the next 10 days...
2 of the most stressful things I have to do (now that I am no longer working) is taking Lucas to the doctor - he doesn't like the waiting and gets restless, then he starts acting up cos he wants to leave after seeing the doctor but mama is still talking to the doctor, so Lucas will go and play with the blinds and the doctor doesn't like that and tells mama that the blinds are fragile and please take Lucas away, but mama isn't strong enough to hold Lucas down while he's struggling and talk to the doctor at the same time....; and the 2nd thing is feeding Lucas medication. I mentioned it to the doctor this morning and he says that other mothers have managed so he doesn't see why I cannot. He says I need to exert authority but I am already holding him down to give him his meds, what more can I do? Lucas will not listen as he really doesn't want to take any kind of meds.
The doctor also told me that babies cannot say no to the foods we feed them - I was telling the doctor that Lucas is such a fussy eater and picks on his food. He says again I have to make him eat whatever I want to feed him. He doesn't tell me how to make him tho'. If my french was better I'd have told him to take Lucas for a day and then see if he can manage to get Lucas to eat whatever adult food he makes! He says Lucas can feel when I am anxious for him to eat and will take advantage of that. Sigh. I thought about that and have to concede that maybe that could be true. I need to put the same amount of enthusiasm into introducing other foods to Lucas like I did with pasta and pizza.

Lucas' fever

Thank you all for your emails. Lucas is doing OK now. His fever has broken since last night. He is still not eating much, but am drinking milk. I am mixing cereal into his milk to make sure he gets all his nutrients. Yesterday Lucas slept most of the day after he woke up at 5 a.m. My MIL came over and spent the whole day babysitting! It was a really nice surprise for both Fred & I.
Lucas is very, very manja now and is taking advantage of being sickly to insist on having his pacifier with him all day! Normally he only gets it when he goes to sleep. He is also asking for Alvin & The Chipmunks all day....

Urgences

Yesterday Lucas was sickly and hardly ate his food, neither did he want his milk. He started to run a temperature by noon and I began to take his temp every 2 hours. I also attempted to give him paracetamol for babies but as he was struggling so much, I only managed to get him to drink a little bit. By the time Fred came back, Lucas was tired and running a temperature of 38.6 (or that was what I thought since I took his temperature via his armpit). We managed to get Lucas to take some paracetamol and put him to bed.
Lucas woke up crying at 10 pm and this time he felt really hot and I was getting scared so I asked Fred to take us to the hospital. He was reluctant as he says the hospitals here are for emergencies and not for fevers! (not like Malaysia where I can drive Lucas into Pantai Medical Center anytime 24-7) Fred wanted to put Lucas in the bath but I insisted so he drove us to the Urgences.
Lucky for us it was a quiet night, and we were attended to immediately. As we were registering Lucas, he started to throw up. When they ushered us into the room, the nurse gave Fred a rectal thermomether and told him to take Lucas temperature (I thought the nurses should be doing that...) Anyway Lucas' temp was 40 degrees and climbing. The doctor immediately gave Fred a suppository (again, isn't the nurse supposed to do that????)
Lucas had to go through some prodding and he also had a chest x-ray as the paediatrician wanted to rule out pneumonia.
Then the nurse came in with a urine pouch and again asked Fred to disinfect Lucas' groin area so she could put on the pouch for him as they wanted to do a urine test. Lucas' fever went down by 1230 am, but we were still stuck in the hospital waiting for Lucas to pee. Finally at 2 am, the doctor came and gave us a slip of paper to deliver Lucas' urine to the labs ourselves as Lucas still hasn't peed into the pouch.
After we got home and changed Lucas, as I was putting him to bed, he peed - into the pouch and it overflowed onto me. So, after changing both Lucas and I again, it was almost 3 am when we went to bed.
Lucas woke me up at 5 am this morning, vomiting on the bed with a raging fever. I had to put 2 suppositories into him, 1 for the fever and the other for his vomiting. But looking back I think the vomiting was good as he expelled a lot of phlegm.
When Fred left for work at 8, Lucas' fever was still raging on. I waited until 10 to administer another suppository and Lucas went to sleep finally.
My MIL came over when she heard Lucas was sick and offered to take the urine to the lab and go to the pharmacie for us as she didn't want Lucas to go out as he is now susceptible to all kinds of viruses, especially the H1N1.

At 2 pm, Lucas' fever was still going on strong so I put in another suppository and then at 230 I ran a lukewarm bath for him. After his bath, Lucas finished a bottle of milk - finally! He's only been drinking water til now. At 4 pm he also took some cereal :)

Tomorrow, Lucas won't be going to creche or even out anywhere. I intend to keep him indoors for the next week or so til he's fully recovered. Its scary when your baby gets sick. In KL I had doctors at my disposal anytime of the day. But here in France it doesn't seem that way tho' now I know I can insist on going to the hospital if need to.