At 15 Month

Dah lama tak buat post Afif's milestone. Moh kite..

Feeding

-Kalo nasik or porridge memang susah betol nak makan. Macam-macam style aku buat dah. Tumis pakai butter or olive oil. Letak telur or letak cheese. Vege and protein pon aku tukar-tukar nak test mana dia nak; broccoli, carrot, pumpkin, spinach.. Chicken or salmon. Tak kisah la apa pon cara, still dia takmo. Aku conclude dia memang kureng suka nasik.

-Makan nasik lauk kurma suka pulak.

-Tapi kalo pasta amboih laju je makan. Selalunya licin mangkuk. Yang paling dia suka tomato-based sauce. Aku memang buat sendiri pasta sauce tu sebabnya yg ready made tu buat pakai cuka. Takot perot dia sensitip pulak. Pasta plak pakai alphabet pasta. Senang kecik-kecik takyah nak potong bagai.

-Dia suka makan fruits. Betik, tembikai, melon, limau mandarin.. Kalo brekfes tu kadang aku malas aku bagi je dia avocado-banana mash. Memang laju je habis.

-Snacks lain yang dia suka adalah Cheerios cereal and organic apple puff ape ntah brand tu aku beli kat Manjaku. Roti cicah air cekelat pon feveret.

-Ni sejak aku kat rumah memang memanjang dia bergayut nak breastfeed. Every hour. Tak dapat monitor brapa oz sebenarnya. So happy i can fully direct breastfeed him. Takyah risau susu dipam cukup ke tak hari-hari.

 Alphabet pasta with homemade chicken bolognese sauce. His current favorite.

Development

-At 15 month dia belom boleh jalan sendiri okeh. Pening gak aku sebabnya dah 3 bulan bertatih ni. Bila lepas tangan, dia jalan 4-5 steps pastu jatuhkan badan. Macam dia gayat je nak bediri/jalan lelama. Kadang kalo dia berdiri and rasa aku lepaskan tangan, cecepat dia duduk. Takpe, i know it'll be soon. I'll enjoy these days that you love holding my hands so much.
-Skill lain dah boleh salam and cium tangan orang. Wave hands and flying kiss. High five. Suap makanan sendiri guna sudu even though clumsy lagi. Dah tau konsep bukak/tutup lampu, fridge, penutup teko (he's obsessed with teapot). Geleng kepala bila takmo. Clap hands. Dance to songs.
-Tunjuk kat mata bila ditanya mana mata.. Ketap-ketap gigi bila ditanya mana gigi. Bila nampak patung Barney, dia tunjuk mata Barney pastu tunjuk mata dia. Matching skill is there.

Teman mama dedi lepak kat mapley.

 You're just like an angel. Your skin makes me cry.

Activities and Hobbies

-Hobi dia apa lagi kalo bukan iPad. Kalo nmpak iPad tu tu shriek sambil tangan joget-joget. Memang pantang la dgn aku. Sehari aku limitkan boleh 2 sessions je tu pon 10 minutes. Nasib baik kat iPad dia reti unlock, tengok videos and tolak-tolak page apps tu je. Tak ajar main game.
-Sekarang dia suka menyanyi. Ada satu lagu dalam Barney ni Chugga-chug dia suka betul. Everytime dia nyanyi (bukan ada tune pon. Aaa-aa-aaa camtu) sambil menari cam Barney, kitorang tau la dia tgh nyanyi lagu tu. Haha
-Suka jugak main passing-passing bola back and forth ngan aku or Hubby. Excited nak tangkap bola  everytime kitorang pass kat dia. Pastu baling bola tu bawah lemari suruh orang amek (-____-)
-Suka campak barang atas lantai. Yang ni aku penat btol nak layan tapi layan kan aje. Everytime dia campak, aku akan buat muka terkejut and cakap "Hahhhh! Susu/mangkok/kalkulator/bola jatuh! Siapa jatuhkan? Afif ke? Pegi amek.." Memang idok ler dia amek.
-Dah pandai main Mega Bloks. Idok ler sampai built gajah/spaceship bagai.. Dia dah tau konsep sambungkan blocks. Sambungkan, pastu cabut. Gitu je ler..
-Obsess dengan kucing. Seboleh boleh dikejarnya kucing.
-Haritu kat Langkawi bawak dia gi beach. Nak ajar main pasir kononnya. Tapi dia geli. Diangkat nya kaki pastu suh aku dukung. Sabar je la.

 Tiger and cat.

Upin Ipin's biggest fan. 

Kecewa sebab mama suruh main masak-masak ngan Barney. i wanna play ball ma!

(in my defense, the speech therapist suggest role play to enhance speech and language development)

 Mama's mall buddy.

Hearing & Speech

-Alhamdulillah sejak aku amek cuti ni, nampak banyak improvement. Paling penting dia suka pakai HA dia. Dulu suka cabut. Skarang memang bila dipakaikan, sampai aku tanggalkan baru cabut. Alhamdulillah.

-Kalo aku lupa pakaikan, dia tunjuk kat hearing aid tu. Pernah skali ni aku sengaja tak pakaikan sambil bg dia tengok Upin Ipin. Pastu dia raba telinga dia sambil pandang aku. i take as a sign that he's asking for it.

-Lagi banyak membebel dan menyanyi. Dulu kureng.

-Tapi bunyi yang dia keluarkan still limited to aaaa, maaa, mammm, abumm.. Still no na, ta, da.. It's okay. We'll get there. Tak sabar gi next speech therapy nak belajar how to teach him to produce sounds.

Routine

Today is the 14th day of being a SAHM. The experience? Mixed of yayy and grrrr..

i applied for my unpaid leave in the second week of December. Ada sedikit isu sebabnya kitorang bertukar bos. Bos lama takda authority nak sign, bos baru pulak bila aku cari kat opis dia, selalu takda. But i'm so thankful that all my bosses are understanding and supportive. Siap suruh aku cuti setahun terus. Eh? Pastu kene settlekan bayar in advance loan rumah untuk 3 bulan. Perghh nasib baik ada savings. Kalo tak, susah jugak. Maka gedebuk gedebak, 2 days before actual cuti date tu baru all are signed, sealed and submitted to HR. Legaaa..

Selama ni, aku slalu berangan nak brenti keje, jadi SAHM or have small business from home. But seriously, seminggu sebelum start cuti tu, aku banyak termenung. Kat opis i kept thinking "i'm gonna miss my friends. This computer, i'm gonna miss it.." Sambil jalan kat KLCC tu aku fikir "Goshh i won't be able to drink San Francisco for breakfast for a long long time.." Sampai makcik cleaner and makcik kat foodcourt pon aku sedih memikirkan akan rindu. Tak campur lg hal kerja. Accanner kalo nanti tak reti jadi geologist dah?

And then there's this "Crap! i have to depend on hubby for money.." which stresses me out coz i've always been independent. Buy what i want with my own money. Bak kata member aku "Nanti nak beli jagung rebus kat pasar pon mintak ihsan laki.." Haih..

But a mom's gotta do what a mom's gotta do.

Start cuti 2 Januari 2014 tuhari tapi sebab first Jan tu public holiday, kiranya new year lah aku jadi surirumah.

Serious weh. Jadi. Surirumah. Adalah. Lagi. Penat. Daripada. Jadi. Working. Mom.

Rutin Pagi

-Bangon around 9am.

-Golek-golek geletek ngan Afif.

-Turun breakfast.

-Feed Afif sambil dia buat sepah/ suap aku/round dapur

-Mandikan Afif.

-Dia nenen setengah jam.

-Activities: Tatih around the house/tengok kucing/tengok Upin Ipin/tengok Barney/main toys indoor/ sambil stress sebab kenapa ko taknak lepas tangan mama bila berjalan? Sambil dia nangis kenapa mama suka lepaskan tangan suruh aku jalan sendiri?

-Nenen lagi

-Afternoon nap. (sometimes for both of us, sometimes only him while i do my thing to get my sanity)

-Masak Afif's lunch / kalo ada mood, masak for the whole family

Rutin Tengah Hari - Petang

-Lunch 

-Afif bangon

-Activities

-Feed Afif lunch sambil stress sebab dia makan sikit.

-Nenen

-Activities

-Nenen

-Try to get him to nap

-Do chores

-Afternoon walk around the block or playground

-Bathe Afif

Rutin Malam

-Play

-Feed Afif dinner

-Mama dinner

-Get Afif to bed (read: nenen for 2 hours to sleep gahhhh)

-Kemas bilik/lipat kain/panaskan lauk/tunggu Hubby balik.

Ini lah lebih kurang rutin aku.

i'm lucky i live with Wan and Mak Ngah. They cook. Kalau sempat, aku basuh, sidai, lipat baju. On days when Afif is not too clingy, i cook/kemas bilik/vacuum. Gitu lah. Setakat ni sempat 3 hari masak mac n' cheese and pizza. Both from scratch nan hado guna ready made sauce bagai.

Tak dapat aku bayangkan full time housewife ada 3-4 orang anak. Mana nak layan budak, kemas rumah, laundry, masak. Memang gila.

But i'm loving it, actually. This stay at home thing. i just wish i can earn what i earn at the office, being a SAHM.

 Explained why my Instagram is full of Afif.

Officially a Stay at Home Mom

Hope it's not too late to wish ya'll Happy New Year!

i started the year off by doing something entirely new: being a stay at home mom or in short, SAHM. So today was my eighth day of being a full time mom.

Jangan salah paham.. Sebenarnya, bukanlah quit kerja terus. i'm on 3-month unpaid leave. Kenapa?

As i have blogged in this post, Afif has hearing problem. We have been attending speech therapy sessions since December 2013. In the sessions, the therapist, Dr. Basyar emphasized that parents' role in helping the child develop good speech and language skills are very big. She said that there are two scenarios for hearing impaired toddlers like Afif:

Scenario 1: grow up to have good speech and language skills with no/minimal need of sign language. Kids like this will be in the speaking society and can attend public school.

Scenario 2: grow up to have poor/minimal speech and language skills, need to use sign language as mean of communication. Kids in this category belong in the sign language society and will need to attend special school.

Don't get me wrong. i am not against disabled people, further away from discriminating against them. i believe that disabled or not, a person can aim and put effort to be whatever they want to be. But as a parent that belongs to the speaking society, i'd like for Afif to be in the speaking society too. i dream for him to attend pre-school, kindergarten, go to sekolah kebangsaan and menengah and follow his dreams to be what he aims to be in life. For that reason, i will do whatever i must to help him obtain good speech and language skills. So yeah, i aim for scenario 1.

It's easier said than done. Before this, Mr. Chenta and i thought that buying him the hearing aids is sufficient enough. Wrong! Getting him to wear hearing aid in all waking hours is challenging in the first few months. We also have to interact, communicate and let him hear sounds to help him to speak.

Masalahnya, kalau duduk dengan babysitter, i can't monitor his HA usage. Dia suka tanggalkan.. Aku pon kekadang hilang sabar nak pakaikan balik, apatah lagi babysitter yang ada baby lain untuk dijaga. Other than that, we feel that he might not get enough interaction for speech development. Maka dengan itu, aku dengan rela hati amek cuti tanpa gaji.

Ideally, a child needs to be with a parent/guardian full time until he can speak clearly in full sentence "Mama, Afif nak makan pasta". That takes about 3-4 years. Eventually, it's either hubby or i have to quit our job. We'll think about that as we go along.

For now, i'm gonna enjoy being a full-time mama to Afif Haiqal (while figuring out the next step..)

Four Letter Word

Afif demam since malam tadi. Penangan kene MMRV jab haritu kot.

Golek-golek ngan dia atas katil. Penat dah layan dia tatih. Merengek la dia tak sedap badan campur nak ajak main.

Bebel.

"Mmmm.. Hmmm.. Abummm..  Mama!"

*i stopped breathing*

OMG HE SAID MAMA! 

MAMA!

Loud and clear. 

The four-letter word i've been longing to hear him say.

MAMA!

You have no idea how excited i was.  Danced and laughed and baaahahaha. And i asked him to say it again. 

"Mama. Afif, say mama.."

He just looked at me, smiling.

"Mama.. Afif, mama.."

Sengih je dia.

Oh well. Maybe he said that unintentionally but he said it. I'm sure with more practice and constant wear of hearing aid, he'll get a hold of it.

Good job Afif! Mama and daddy are so proud of you.

Because Afif is Special

i've been wanting to blog about this for a while. But i couldn't find the mood to. Or i simply wasn't ready. So here goes..

The Beginning..

When Afif was 3 days young, he had a Newborn Hearing Test. This test is compulsory for babies born in Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC). The result showed that he has mild hearing loss in both ears. The audiologist told us not to worry coz some babies have that kind of result. Especially babies like Afif who were born borderline premature, kinda low birth weight and through c-section. Maybe some fluids are still in his system, so that's why the hearing results were like that. i was so glad. So we didn't think too much about it.

About a month after that, we had the same test. Still negative. A few trips to the PCMC audiologist after that gave the same results. The audiologist said he can hear loud noises and high frequency sounds. But normal, conversational voice, dia dengar sayup-sayup, tenggelam timbul. He'll have problem to speak because he can't hear voices clearly.

i, of course was shocked, sad and worried. What confused us is that he laughs, responds and talks back when we talk to him or when he's watching tv. When we call him, he responds. What is that?

My husband and grandma was all "Don't think about it too much. He's still little. His ears are okay and he'll hear fine.." We're basically in denial.

Acceptance

One day, it was raining outside with loud thunders. A few times, i jumped out of my skin coz of the loud noise. But my baby, went on playing and slept soundly as if it was normal. Like he did not hear all the noise. Another day, he was watching the tv and i came from behind him. Calling his name aloud. A few times. No response. He just watched the tv. Like he couldn't hear me call.

These are the two turning points. The events that snap me out of denial. Though hard, i accepted that my son has a hearing problem.

We went to get him further tested. This time we went to Kuching General Hospital for second opinion. Why Kuching? Because my parents in law live there and my father in law works in that hospital. The test gave same result; my son has mild to moderate hearing loss in both ears.

The Cause

To all the doctors and audiologists we asked the same questions; why Afif has this hearing loss when we, his parents, have normal hearing? We don't even have family members with hearing loss. 

They say in 1000 births, 1-2 babies are born with hearing loss. Afif is one of those babies.

Digging back into my medical history, they all have the same answer; they expect the fever that i had when i was 2 month pregnant was the cause. If you read this post that i wrote, i had a viral fever (which i thought was dengue) when i was 2 month pregnant. My temperature was 40degree Celcius that time with rashes all over my body. That time, the doctor even said i could lose my baby. But i was thankful my baby was ok and i gave birth 7 months later. i never thought he would have this kind of problem.

A fever or illness at early stage of pregnancy puts the baby at risk because at this stage, all major organs are developing. i guess Afif's hearing organs were developing when i had that fever. Maybe the development somehow were stopped.

The audiologist said that Afif's eardrum, cochlear, middle ear most of the ear anatomy are functioning okay. The problem is the nerves did not develop normally. The nerve can not transfer sounds from the ear to the brain. i don't really understand that. Will need to ask more.

i'm just thankful it's just his hearing. At least his heart and brain are functioning okay.

Moving On..

The audiologists said we're lucky that we detected his hearing loss early. This way, he could wear the hearing aids early in life and he could hear and learn to talk like normal babies. In most cases, hearing loss is detected when the child is 3-4 years old because the parents noticed that he/she couldn't speak. By that time, it's too late and it'll take more effort to teach the child about sound and to get the child to speak properly.

We bought his hearing aids (HA) when he was about 9 months old. So far he hates it. You know how babies hate to wear hats, hairclips, glasses, etc on their body. Same goes with hearing aids. He yanks them out all the time. When he wears them, we have to keep his hands busy or get him distracted so that he forgets about the hearing aids. 

So far, we're doing a bad job. He wears the HA mostly at home on weekends for 2-5 hours. On weekdays, he only puts it on for maximum of 1.5 hours coz he spends the day at the babysitter's. Itu pon kadang-kadang je bukan hari-hari sebab kadang malam dia ngantok la ape la.. At first we're not advised to let him wear the HA at the babysitter's coz of loud noise (banyak budak kat situ). In the last 6 weeks we have let him wear the HA at the babysitter's. They said he still yanks the HA out all the time. Sigh.

We have been seeing the audiologist at Pusat Audiology HUKM for follow up. The problem now is Afif hates the HA. We (husband, the audiologists and i) don't know if he hates it because it's not comfortable or is it because the tune and sound of the HA is too loud for him. Dah dua session kitorang buat test just to get the most accurate result tapi tak dapat, sebab Afif takleh duk diam. Ye lah budak tengah lasak, tatih la main la cranky lah dia.

i expect him to have delay in speech. Lambat la kot baru bercakap. Sekarang ajar dia sebut basic things like ball, mama, nak, daddy.. Dia dengar je tapi tak sebut pon.

i hate myself for not trying hard enough to help Afif. He really has to wear the HA full time when he's awake but so far when he's with me, he only wears it 3 hours maximum because he hates it. Kat rumah babysitter lagi lah kejap dia pakai agaknya. i really hate myself for not doing good enough.

That's Afif's story. Maybe there'll be a different blog on his hearing journey to share our experience and to help parents out there who has similar experience. i'm telling you, people in Malaysia are not exposed to this. It's hard for us to find a support group or people with similar experience so we feel so alone.

Please pray that my son will live a normal life. My biggest fear is for him to be treated differently by people, for him bullied at school/work or for him to grow up with low self esteem. If i could, i'd gladly donate my ears to him so that he could be normal. But there's no such thing. Sigh.

i still am in a bit of a haze with all this hearing issues. Some days i refuse to acknowledge it. Some days i cry. It is not easy.

Playtime! 

 Penat la, mama..

Out and about.

Whatever it is, we'll keep on fighting with him. For him.