We are in the motherland of fireworks and firecracker. The cracking sound of firecrackers never stop and the colourful display of fireworks bursting in the sky never cease until they have exhausted whatever is available.

Zeeyau first encounter with kiddie fireworks.  A bigger girl now, she is enjoying them.

Fireworks shooting up everywhere. Pardon our lousy camera and skill, they should look much prettier.

Setting off a huge pile of firecrackers and fireworks just outside our estate. Taken by surprised while alighting from the car, the ground just shook under our feet as the fireworks shot into the sky right beside us. They did it on the public road, cars passing by were ushered with broken confetti of red papers from the firecrackers and ashes from the fireworks, and if you are lucky, burns from the sparks and cinders. I wonder how much money they have burnt. We enjoy the loud booming sound though.

弟弟 is the only one who wasn’t impressed. He was totally scared and buried himself deep into our arms. He jumped onto the bed immediately when we got home and hid under the blanket ever since.

I do wonder if it is the pyschological effect or the wonder of medicine that always made the children recover very quickly after paying the doctor a visit. It always take ages to wait out an aliment whereas seeing the doctor will solve the problem in a day.

Whatever it is, both the children are recovering. 弟弟 is up to his mischiefs again, though I am quite happy to see him making me angry this time. Zeeyau still behaves like a sick girl, but I know she is quite well. Lying around for so many days made her think that she is very sick and weak. She is still constipating. Poor girl, 4 days without a poop, must be all stuffy inside. I tried to feed her more water and fruits, but doesn’t seems to work very well.

I changed my strategy and started mesaging her tummy today. I remember while she was still an infant, it worked for her. Well, she still couldn’t get the stuff out, but she is breaking so much wind that I could feel her tummy much softer now. Hoping for a more successful tomorrow now.

We have been missing in action again for the past few days because all three of us are down. 弟弟 diarrhea did not dried up, he is still having 2-3 times loose stools a day, complained of stomach pain pain and has totally lost his energy and appetite.

Zeeyau reported sick on Monday morning and started throwing out. Well, actually she didn’t really vomit, just water and saliva, but she is having very bad nausea and a rumbling tummy. Weak and limp, she stayed in bed all day, refusing any food and survive on water.

My turn came in the afternoon. First it was nausea and headache, followed by happy toilet times every 15min or so. Tough rush to the loo else I would have dirtied myself like a little baby.

I know my condition very well and estimated that I would be alright in a day or so. I thought I will let the kids body fight against the virus, bacteria or whatever that is causing their aliment, since they don’t appear overly sick. However, it has been 3 days (4 days for 弟弟) and they don’t show much improvement, only I have recovered.

Time to visit the doctor, which is a really intimidating task to me as a new mom in Shanghai. Firstt, I checked out the international hospital and clinics that serve mostly the expat community and the rich. What the hell, consultation fee alone cost around 800-1000rmb. That’s more expensive then seeing my ob-gyn at Mt E back home.

Unwilling and unconvinced that I should spend so much on basic consultation (2 kids will cost me 2000rmb and maybe more, *faint*), I decided to visit 上海交通大学医学院附属上海儿童医学中心 as recommended by a local.

We reached there at about 3.30pm. We have to filled up a registration form as we are first timers, then we were directed to submit the forms to another Triage counter, which then gave us instruction to proceed to the registration counter to 挂号. We paid the 14rmb for the consultation charges at the same window. We were also given a health booklet and a magnetic card for future consultation reference and told to proceed to the internal medicine department.

Found it rather quickly, thanks to the clear signage (and the ability to read Chinese).  There were more individual clinics at the department, like those specialist clinics we see in SGH, but all doors are opened and everything is in view. We passed our forms to the nurse at the desk and were called in to see the doctor in less then 5 min. Thats amazingly quick!

The doctor did the usual checkup like listen to chest, listen to stomach (?), touch here touch there. He was patient and friendly, but talk little. He asked if I had any stool samples with me. I had 弟弟 dirty diaper with me, but he said it wasn’t fresh enough (got to be within 2hr freshness, heh), so decline to have it sent for lab test. Anyway, I just want to make sure the kids are fine and get some medicine.

There was another parent behind us that was very anxious to see the doctor and just stand at the door waiting to barge in. I guess he had his kid seen the same doctor earlier and had some question regarding the prescription. Doctors and nurses are very tolerant about such behaviour.

We got our prescription and off we went to the payment counter before we could collect our medicine. It cost us about 120rmb each for their medicine and they were collected very quickly.

The medicine are quite unlike those we are familiar with. Mostly granular and I have to dissolve them in water before feeding the kid. Zeeyau were even prescript with this TCM 蒲地蓝消炎口服液，which comes in this unappealing brown bottle. It smells a bit like those longan red dates drink, but Zeeyau said it doesn’t taste good. 弟弟 used to be a champion in taking medicine, he cleans up all his dosage like a vacuum cleaner, but this time, he finds them repulsive. Guess they need some getting used to.

Perhaps it was due to the off peak timing I was there, I am very happy with the short wait to see the doctor. However, I think it is about time we should start considering getting some health insurance. If there happens to be a bigger emergency, I think I would still prefer to visit the more expensive healthcare provider to get the kind of health care service I am more familiar and comfortable with.

Poor 弟弟 is having a bad tummy this weekend. He had bad diarrohea yesterday and was most of the time limp and listless. The running stool condition is better today, but his threw out his lunch. I have bought all sort of medicine for cold, fever, runny nose, cough but non is useful this time. I guess he must have eaten something bad or is having a bad case of ingestion.

I would have brought him to see a doctor if we are still in Singapore. Seeking the GP for consultation is so convinient and it gives us a peace of mind. New to Shanghai, I am not familiar with the medical services availiable. I see a lot of dental clinic around, but no clinics. Many foreigners visit private medical clinics/hospitals, meaning “expat doctors”, which are costly. Locals go to hospitals to seek consulatation. I have spoken to some locals about going to hospital, and they said it is normal that it is a half day or even whole day affair. The wait is long and tiring.

I have been to one of the local pediatric department of one of the local hospital as Zeeyau needed to do a medical checkup before she could be admitted to school. There was this room where children do their vacination and it was crowded with children and parents. It was kind of chaotic, but everyone observe a strange rule of queeing. The newcomer will place their immunisation blooklet below the whole big stack on the nurse desk and wait for their turn.

Well, that wasn’t the room for Zeeyau body checkup, so I went to the consulatation room, where there were again many children and parents crowding around, waiting for their turn to have their children do their routine checkup. It was totally unlike what we are used to, ie private room with the doctor inside. We are all in view of the consulatation process as the doctor and patient was only separated by a display cabinet. The doctor was very friendly and patient though, despite the noise made by the parents, grandparents, babysitters and children. I must say I was very impress with such coolness.  But i think it would be very stressful for parents if we have a sick kid on our arms and have to go through such long wait in such crowded environment.

However, there is this VIP service available in some hospital which could shorten the wait and lessen the torments. $$ will always do wonder in this place.

While putting both the children to bed last night, Zeeyau suddenly said to me she was scared. Must be the monster thing again, she has been imagining about monster lately and refuse to sleep in her own bed.

But no, she said she is afraid of growing up and turning 33 years old.

“哦，为什么呀？”

“我怕三十三岁的时候，妈妈会死掉，见不到妈妈了。”

Sob sob sob….I was caught off guarded, never expected that to come out of her mouth and was unprepared for a good response. Dumbfounded, I could only told her that by the time she is 33, I would only be 63 and that is as young as her 阿公 (grandpa) and I would still be strong enough to run, drive and do shopping with her. I think that answer more or less gave her a sense of relief, at least she won’t think I am going to die anytime soon!

We have talked about my mom not being around because she has passed away when I was around 30yr old, so she probably thought that she is to loose her mother around that age too. Must have been a stressful idea, but I think I should present her a more realistic answer in future, that all of us are going to leave this world eventually, though I am not going to disappear at 33. We will meet again in future, in heaven

Just received news from my agent that she has found a tenant for our apartment back home in Singapore. Ah, at least I don’t have to worry about mortgage and management fee for the time being.

However, I miss that place even though I have never stop complaining about it being too small to accommodate two growing children. It is still our very own cosy territory with everything we need available. I hope our boxes will arrive soon, so I can at least implant a few pieces of our familiar items into this new home.

Happy times back home just before the move.

My boxes with my writing stuff are still somewhere in the sea. God knows when they will ever reach my hands. It has been almost two months since I last practice my calligraphy. I haven’t manage to find out where to get my supplies of papers and brushes in this place, where there should be abundance of them. My teacher back home is still waiting for me to send back my homework.

With 弟弟 being so demanding, I wonder if I would be able to sit down quietly and concentrate for an hour or two just to do my daily practice. How I wish to find a trusted babysitter to tend to him just for a couple of hours a day. In the mean time, just have to be patient and wait for him to outgrow this attention seeking stage. He will be eligible for preschool this September. Ah….just 9 more months away!

Ice has started forming in the ponds in our estate.  We could have died of cold if we didn’t get our heating fixed in time.

Prior to our arrival, people had been telling me Shanghai heating facilities at home won’t be adequate and the house will most probably be cold even if we blast our aircon. Somehow, I bought into this idea and didn’t suspect something was really wrong with our aircon.

It was annoying to see my brother and family walking around in t-shirts and shorts in freezing Sweden while the kids and I were piling on 3-4 layers of thick clothing to keep ourselves warm indoor.

Hmm…this can’t be right, how can the home be so cold, life can’t be so bad in winter here! The estate management advice us to have the aircon service and true enough, the filter was almost completely block.

We felt the warm air blowing into us for the first time after more then a month and thank goodness, we managed to get it fixed just in time to save us from the big dip in temperature lately.

Its about time, I am tired of hearing people refering my son as 小姐姐 or 小妹妹. Does he really has such girlish features? I am guessing it was because of his hair, they were getting quite long by Chinese standard here. Seems that boys here all spot very short haircut, those durian head that we are familiar with. Whenever I see Asian looking boys with longer hair, they usually turn out to be Japanese, Koreans or oversea Chinese.

Anyway, there is a hair saloon in my estate, and there is this little elevated car to sit children in while they have their haircut. So much fun and interesting then the cold looking chair. 弟弟 probably didn’t want people to mix up his gender anymore too and sat through the 10 minute or so haircut without any fuss.

And oh, by the way, nobody call him 小姐姐 or 小妹妹 anymore after getting the haircut when we hung out at the playground.

弟弟 hiding under the table after detecting the faint roaring sound of fire crackers.

He was treated a bad shocked two weeks ago when there was a firework display just next to our estate. It was common here to set off fire crackers or fireworks for wedding or other celebrations. While we were enjoying the spectacular display of colours from the bedroom, we found him hiding in between some cupboards in the study.

Ever since then, he panicked whenever he hears “boom boom boom” like sound and he forbids anyone to pull the curtains in the bedroom to the side during bedtimes. Spring festival will probably be the nightmare of his life.