The Story Continues

Why it was delayed

Well, it was not my intention to drag my story on the dyslexia thingy into another year. I should have updated that before we greeted 2010, but somehow, I got carried away with other stuffs.

Meeting the Consultant Psychiatrist
Ok, so we went to see a Consultant Psychiatrist (CP) in GMC. She took down SY's birth history (emergency C-sec, and other details), and also asked us about our concerns. We told her why we're there in the first place, to address the concern brought up by her principal. Anyway, we also mentioned that we're not so worried about the dyslexia thingy, compared to her hyper-activeness and her speech articulation. So she spent some time observing her playing – oh yes, her room was full of toys! We took SJ along since we couldn’t leave her alone, and it’s a good thing too because the CP got to observe how SY played with her sister.

The Tests Begin

She gave her some short tests on her writings, the alphabets, etc. The CP also observed the way SY did her counting and writing, as well as how she answered her questions. We're also asked to go out for awhile so that she could have a 1:1 session with SY (SY requested not to have the door closed when we left, and the CP agreed).

The CP played with her for awhile, before asking us in to update us on her findings.

The Diagnosis

So, after about a 2-hours session, here's her diagnosis:

On Dyslexia

It's still too early to label our child as dyslexic (as we had anticipated), so she asked us not to worry about it. On another side note, she observed that SY’s brain worked faster than her hands, from the activities that she did with her. She also agreed that SY got very good memory. She did advise us to correct her whenever she wrote in mirror, and also suggested the use of the alphabets magnet as a learning aid. 

Something New

However, the CP noticed that SY's attention span was quite short, as compared to a 4-year old (btw, that time she's not even 4 yet), and told us about ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder). She suspected that our child might have ADD – as she’s quite rough when playing with her little sister and couldn’t sit still to complete an activity. For this, she recommended us to give her Efalax fish oil for 3 months. It’s not a medication, but according to her, this could help with her concentration. And since it’s a very good supplement, there’s no harm taking it.

When I asked her what could cause ADD, whether it was inherited, she told me that there were many possibilities. One could be lack of oxygen during her birth (well, she’s an emergency C-section baby, so I was a little worried). However, since her Apgar score was rather high – 9, so it shouldn’t be due to that. And since none of us had any family history on ADD, there could be the environmental factor too, such as taking too much fast food, MSG-based or high calories stuffs. Well, I wouldn’t deny that SY ate quite a lot KFCs, McDs, and even gassy drinks like 100-plus, etc. So she advised us to cut down on those. Apart from that, she also suggested a more structured environment for her, like a separate play area from the study area, because her mind might be difficult to distinguish these clearly.

Speech
As for her speech articulation, she advised us to bring her to see a speech therapist, so as to correct her from young. She recommended one from the Island Hospital and wrote a referral letter for us.

Does it ring a bell?

Well so it seemed that our direction was steered to a different one this time, from dyslexia to ADD. That made me wonder... is that why we had such a difficult time with her? Well, she’s certainly more difficult to handle compared to her little sister, but I always thought that was due to their characters. When she’s smaller, that was before she started full day school, her normal bedtime was around 2am, and she could never play alone. She needed our full attention all the time, and she’s so hyper active. We’re all worn out most of the time (3 of us, mine you -1 little girl with 3 caretakers!) and kept wondering why our child was so hard to handle.

Could it be due to her being a firstborn and only child then, and taken care by her grandmother some more, so she’s practically spoilt to the brim? And then now – after hearing this side of the story, I started to wonder – ah, could this be the symptoms of ADD?

I was more worried after I sought out the Psychiatrist’s advice… Hmm… and do you know how much we paid for this new anxiety? RM300! No wonder the service was so good. Well, but my story’s not ended yet. We had to see a Speech Therapist, remember? Ya, next post, hopefully.

Predators in Disguise

I had been planning to send SY for Art Lessons, and thought maybe this would be a good year to start her, since she's 5 (she just celebrated her 4th birthday less than 1 month ago!). But something stopped me from doing so temporary.

I heard a real life story from a friend where a 6-year old girl was sent for arts lesson with her brother. When her brother's not going with her, her teacher (male) would ask her to go into a room, gave her stickers and started to touch her private part. She was asked not to tell anyone, and given more stickers to keep her mouth shut. Her parents only found out about this ~1 year later, when the child burst out why she didn't like to go to Art Class.

Gosh, even though I've heard of many child molest cases, it's still disgusting to hear about this especially when it's so close to you. After this I vowed that if I'm ever going to send my kids for extra lessons - the first criteria would be the teacher MUST be a lady teacher. And most of the art teachers are male, so do let me know if you know of any good lady art teachers nearby!

An Appetizer to 2010

Last December, we were asked to prepare something for a potluck Christmas party at SY's school. When the teacher asked me what would I bring, I told them home-made yoghurt. But it seemed like they were not so eager to the idea and suggested sausages instead. Well, hubby pointed out - not all people like yoghurt, you see...

So, in the end, here's how my cocktail sausages and fruit sticks turn out to be. Yes, I insisted to include some tomatoes and grapes in it so that it would be healthier. I purposely stick the tomatoes and grapes on top of the sausages because kids normally prefer sausages to fruits, so they would have to eat the fruits first before they can get to the sausages (evil me!). I was planning to get some green grapes too, to add more colors so as to attract the kids, but unfortunately I couldn't find seedless green grapes. So I had to make do with this.

Oh, by the way, I overslept that day, so after boiling the sausages, hubby helped me to wash the fruits and we sticked them quickly before we woke the kids up :) So, what does this imply? Yeah, it's surely a fast and simple thing to prepare!

Ah, I know it's nothing much to shout about, but I just wanted to start my first post of the year with something positive - and food is always a great appetizer, don't you think so? :)

What I wish for Christmas...

Every year we had a Christmas gift exchange among our colleagues. This year was the 3rd year that we started practising that.

The first year, each of us draw lots and see whose name we got. We had to buy a gift for that person, and secretly placed it under the christmas tree without revealing who we were.

The 2nd year, we changed from drawing names to drawing numbers. We bought a present for the number that we got, labeled our gift with that number and secretly placed the gift under the christmas tree. Then, on the gift exchange day, we'd draw another number to see which gift we’d get.

This year, we did it differently. We’re supposed to write down what we wanted as a Christmas gift on a piece of paper, and put it back into the ballot box. Then, after everyone had returned his/her wish list, there’s a lucky draw session where each person would pick up a wish list and see what they were supposed to buy. And the rules were we’re supposed to buy something as close as possible to the wish list (minimum RM20, the sky's the limit). For example, if A wanted a girlfriend, we could buy a pair of cinema tickets, and include a telephone number of one of our still available female friends. If B wanted sweet memory, we could buy a Hacks and a 128MB DIMM RAM. If C wanted a gold bar, we could buy chocolate gold bars. Interesting right?

So off we went to buy the gift, wrapped it up, and secretly placed it under the Christmas tree when no was looking. Here's our Christmas tree just before the gift exchange time....Taaa....da!

Presents waiting to be opened

Hmm.... I saw a lot of interesting wish lists...here're just a few of them, from downright straightforward ones up to those that required some creativity and imagination from the buyer.

This one must be from a lady

We had a few wish list on electronic gadgets, such as pendrive, thumbdrive, wireless mouse, car FM modulator, etc...

A Doraemon fans

Ah, at least Santa knew what to look for - so precise

This one gave Santa a harder time...

Ooh... and this one wants a Santa Claus!

Now, now, I would like to know that too!

Hey, do you really think Santa can grant this wish? Work from home once per week!

Haha, A Happy Meal for "Make Me Happy for Whole Day"?

Wow... a Horse!

A holiday trip to Bangkok!

Ok, so that's what we saw from the outside, are you interested to know what's inside them? I wouldn't share all of them  here, but just pick a few for a good laugh...

This person's request was very simple - either a Jusco/Sunshine shopping voucher, or something pretty/nice to carry her shopping stuffs. (I guess the pretty/nice word implied that she's a girl, right?) But guess what she got?

A sunflower stalk and a KFC voucher (symbolised sunshine voucher), and a baby stroller for her to carry something pretty inside :) Haha, the buyer's making things complicated, huh?

And this guy said he could do with a girlfriend, or something to use or play in his car. We got the most laugh from here...

Lots of girls' pictures for him to choose, and he still got a solar toy girlfriend for his car (top right of the picture)! The person who bought this actually sewed the word girlfriend for the solar toy's dress. Creative ya? And lotsa hard work too!

Ok, so what other gifts you're interested to know what's inside? I would share a few here, including some which I didn't post any pictures above.

1. The Secret to Half Day Job at Full Day Pay - The 4D book for all forms (Toto, 4D, Magnum) and also a book on how to enjoy your work and your life

2. Work from home once a week - a pillow! So, instead of giving something to be able to work from home, the buyer thought that making the office like home would be quite similar. Brilliant, don't you think so?

3. Magnet (not in the pics above) - A perfume for lady with the word - to attract or be attracted. And you know what? The person who wish for this is a guy (oO)

4. Perfume - A generic perfume (can be for a girl or a guy), and also a car perfume

5. A holiday trip to Bangkok - A book entitled Bangkok Tattoo by John Burdett.

6. Horse - A teddy horse with a Ferrari logo

7. Make me happy for whole day - Happy Meal vouchers and coupons for breakfast, lunch and dinner

8. Super Mario solar toy - a solar toy with Super Mario pasted to its face.

9. Starbuck Penang City Mug - The buyer actually bought a blank mug and pasted the design on it! Take a look at the picture below, it looks so real! But that's just a joke, the person who wished for this did get the actual mug :)

Don't you think it's fun? Oh yes, we have lots of fun and we're sure looking forward to next year's Christmas Exchange Gift. Till then, Merry Christmas everyone! And oh yes, wishing you all a wonderful 2010 ahead! A new hope, a new beginning, I'm sure it has lots of great starts for everyone.

A Gift in Disguise?

How it was discovered

Last month, we had a parent-teacher evaluation with our daughter’s principal regarding her performance and progress in school. She brought up something that disturbed her, and asked us to go seek medical advice.

A new Discovery

Well, according to her, SY had a tendency to mirror spell, and it’s not just a single alphabet. She could spell the whole word exactly like how we see it in the mirror, with the sequence from right to left too. Furthermore, it happened 80% of the time. However, whenever they corrected her, she would remember and try to do it correctly. The principal was worried that our child had dyslexia, and advised us to bring her to see the doctor.

The Symptoms

Well, we’re a bit shocked to hear this of course, though not too worried. We have noticed that she tends to confuse b with d, and at times she did mirror write ‘s’, ‘z’ or even ‘2’. But we’ve never seen her mirror write for the whole word. Also, when I was doing some revision with her on her spelling tests, I have never seen her write in mirror image. Hubby and I searched the web for info on dyslexia, and we found that she had some of the symptoms mentioned (like cannot tell the time, confuse with what day it is, mirror spelling, sometimes tend to put on shoes on the wrong feet, read "was" for "saw", "no" for "on", tends to trip or bump into things and falling over, etc). However, it’s still too early to tell since the earliest age to professionally diagnose dyslexia would be 5 and a half year old. Also, I have checked with a few friends and even her former principal, and they told me that it's common for a child to have confussion with these letters at such young age.

If you’re interested to know some of the symptoms, here are some of them:

Pre-School Non-language indicators
- May have walked early but did not crawl - was a 'bottom shuffler' or 'tummy wriggler'.
- Persistent difficulties in getting dressed efficiently and putting shoes on the correct feet.
- Enjoys being read to but shows no interest in letters or words.
- Is often accused of not listening or paying attention.
- Excessive tripping, bumping into things and falling over.
- Difficulty with catching, kicking or throwing a ball; with hopping and/or skipping.
- Difficulty with clapping a simple rhythm.

Other quite comprehensive websites:

http://www.audiblox.com/dyslexia_symptoms.htm
http://www.dyslexia.com/library/symptoms.htm

On the other hand, we also found some contradictions. One source mentioned that a dyslexic child will have an unusual pencil grip, but the principal told us SY has excellent pencil grip and is considered one the few kids in her class who could hold the pencil the correct way without being needed to be reminded constantly to correct her grip. Also, she's able to read books, while a dyslexic child will have difficulty reading.

In the meantime, we also noticed that her speech articulation was not very clear. Could it be related? Or could it be something to do with her hearing that caused all these? Sometimes I wondered if she had any hearing problem...

We have a Genius? Well, in the midst of all these, hubby still able to look on the bright side and send me this info:

Why is dyslexia a gift?
Dyslexic people are visual, multi-dimensional thinkers. They are intuitive and highly creative, and excel at hands-on learning. Because they think in pictures, it is sometimes hard for them to understand letters, numbers, symbols, and written words.
They can learn to read, write and study efficiently when they use methods geared to their unique learning style.

Individuals with Dyslexia More Likely to be Millionaires

- A study by the Tulip Financial Group found that self-made millionaires are more likely to be dyslexic. A significant majority of the 5,000 self-made millionaires in the UK reportedly struggled in school. The results come from a study commissioned by the British Broadcasting Company 2 (BBC2). In an attempt to learn more about the minds of millionaires, a team of psychologists and business experts, spent a day testing a group of entrepreneurial millionaires. They were put through a series of tests. 40% of the 300 millionaires who participated in the more comprehensive study had been diagnosed with dyslexia.

Here is a list of some of the people who seemed to have been dyslexic:

Leonardo DaVinci who had reversals in his manuscripts.

W. Woolworth "who did not have sense".

George Patton who had spelling, writing, reading prblems.

Auguste Rodin who had math, spelling, and language problems.

Winston Churchill.

Harvey Cushing, a brain surgeon, who had spelling, and other language problems

Albert Einstein was not accepted at college, because he failed his EFL entrance exam.

And the list continues…. http://www.dyslexia-test.com/famous.html

Hubby was so excited when he discovered even William Hewlett (founder of Hewlett Packard Company) was also dyslexic!

The Truth is out there
Ok, back to reality. I called our paed and asked for advice, but he recommended me to bring SY see a child psychologist. However the child psychologist was on maternity leave and would only be back next year. According to our paed, he had seen some who cannot read, write or even write in mirror. But he’s not sure if spelling in mirror is considered dyslexic or not. So he advised us to see the child psychologist when she’s back next year.

Well, since hubby’s not too worried about this, we let it be and didn’t seek other doctors’ advice from other hospitals. Until a few weeks later, her principal called to check. I was a bit ashamed because it seemed she’s more worried than us. In the end, we got another recommendation from another paed to see a Consultant Psychiatrist. I will update our meeting with her in another post later. Stay tuned…

A little Act of Sharing

I've not been very disciplined lately. I lost the mojo for blogging. Things that I would have loved to tell the whole world last time, I find myself too lazy even to write them here. The most, I would just update my friends during pumping time.

Well, time passed, and I got a little sms from a dear old friend 2 weeks ago which jolted me back to reality. She told me she've had a tense day that day, but after reading my blog about the 2 little girls, her mood was lifted again. And she actually thanked me for the sharing! Phew, those short messages really made my day too. I've had a tiring and uneventful day that day too, and it's good to get such really sweet note, from someone far away and you've hardly met for the past 7 or 8 years. Thanks! I was really touched, and the message gave me a new motivation to blog again.

You see, I've been contemplating to stop blogging for good, and just write to my girls personally if there's anything important that I wanted them to know. No need to tell the whole world, right? Wrong. After I got that message, I realized that it's about sharing that we made each other's day. So, yes, I'll continue again.

How nice if everyone keep sending such sweet meaningful messages to people around them, wouldn't this be a nicer place to live? Leaving comments is another example of such graceful act. And with Christmas season just around the corner, many preached about sharing and giving. Just last Sunday, our priest shared some slides with us. Every year, the Americans spent ~450 billion dollar on Christmas gifts. What if we stopped buying Christmas gifts this year, and channeled that money into something better like helping the poor, or other fund-raising events instead? That would have saved a lot of money for a much better cause. Because the gifts that we bought for others, would somehow make the other party to oblige by giving us something back, and that would have been like a gift exchange. And, most of the time, we're not really buying something that the person really needs, it's more of a want and sometimes it's not what they wanted at all but we thought would be good for them. Get the point? So instead of wasting that money, might as well spend it on something more meaningful - for those who really need it.

Hmmm... having said that, does that mean I won't be getting any Christmas present this year? But I've promised my little girl that Santa's going to give her something if she continue to behave...

A Half-Vegetarian Experience

Yay, it’s the last day of the Nine-Emperor God Festival today or also known as 九王爷 (Jiu Huang Ye). Why am I so happy? Because I no longer need to be on a vegetarian diet anymore. You see, hubby was on a 3-day strict vegetarian diet, and I joined him for lunch and dinner. Yes, only lunch and dinner and I’m already complaining ;P

I don’t know why, I’ve joined him for the last few years, but somehow this year, my hunger pangs were somehow more profound. Could it be because I’m still breastfeeding? But last year I was too. I didn’t recall feeling so hungry then. This time, it was so bad, that even after I finished my meal, I didn’t feel full at all! I even had gastric pain, sigh. Another immediate side effect that I experienced was low breastmilk supply. Funny, I have a vegetarian friend who's still breastfeeding - I wonder how she managed? Hmmm...so in the end, I cheated – I took some non-vegetarian food as snack (LOL!). Well, not really the meaty stuffs, just the dairy products only. They are so strict that not even diary products are allowed – even the utensils used for eating shouldn’t have been touched with meat/diary products before.

Just yesterday morning, I was buying breakfast for hubby and myself. I went to tapau something from the Jiu Huang Ye stalls for him, and then I gleefully went to the stall besides that to buy some other non-vegetarian food for myself. The lady seller told me that she also sold vegetarian nasi lemak. I hastily told her that I didn’t want vegetarian nasi lemak, but the normal ones! She smiled at me understandingly, and pointed to a variety of nasi lemak with ikan bilis & egg, with fish or with prawns. I chose the one with ikan bilis and egg, and my, how satisfied I was with my breakfast that day, before having to go for another round of vegetarian lunch later.

Well, last night however, hubby bought a variety of vegetarian goodies for dinner. We had vegetarian curry me, with thong sui. He also bought some vegetarian delicacies, gong tang. And surprisingly, I was full immediately, and there was still a pack of vegetarian rice waiting for me – I guess my stomach had adapted to the new lifestyle afterall. In the end, we only ate that rice for supper.

No doubt, being a vegan is very healthy. And good for the soul too. But then again, I still think that what comes out of the mouth matters more than what goes into it. Which is a very good excuse for me, whenever I failed to fast or abstain during the Lentern season.