What do you get when your car get knocked?

A brand new car? Nay, don't be so naive!

It happened just in front of my company's guard house, after Hubby picked me up. She was coming at top speed, still talking into her handphone. It all happened just like that. Bang!

I was anxious, but Hubby assured me it's ok. It's not our fault, and we'll get my car fixed. The lady (Miss C) was very nice, she apologized and promised to compensate for the damage. She told us that she'll give us her mechanics number and asked us to go there for evaluation.

We agreed, but prior to that, Hubby wanted to get some quotations from a few other mechanics first and get the car assessed. We shared the info with Miss C, but she still wanted us to go see her mechanics. Fine, we went there, got the car assessed and was given a quotation. The price was indeed much cheaper than what we got from the previous mechanics. However, she refused to pay the full amount, and told us that she could only afford ~50% of that. Hubby told her that he's willing to top up some, since she's an ex-colleague of him a few years back. But she insisted that Hubby negotiated with me so that I could accept her proposal of bumper re-alignment, painting and headlight polish (without replacing the scratched headlamps (big and small). Looking at the condition of the lamps, we didn't think that it would be 'acceptable' even after some polishing work, so we decided to go for police report.

She agreed, but later came back to us and told us that her insurance coverage would not allow her to claim that since our repair cost did not exceed RM500. So, she suggested the below instead:

- She would pay for the bumper re-alignment, painting and headlight polish
- If we're not satisfied with the results, we could request for the headlamps replacement but we'll have to top up some amount on our side. And she would collect the old headlamps for 2nd hand retail purpose.

Hubby agreed as we wanted to close this ASAP, it has been dragging on and we've spent too much time on this.

Finally, we went to the mechanics to get the car fixed, and the mechanics polished the car in front of us first thing so that we could decide if any lamps replacement was needed. After seeing the effect, we all agreed that only 1 of the lamps needed to be changed, the other one was still presentable. But when we went to collect the car the next day, guess what? None of the lamps were replaced, as the mechanics told us that Miss C refused to pay, and insisted him to polish them till they shine instead.

There, that's what I get after my car got knocked - not to mention those extra time taken for the trips to the mechanics, etc. And I've already closed one eye on my broken car plate number... If I ever decide to sell off my car, I doubt it would fetch a good price unless I top up some $$$ to fix it myself. Sigh...

Really, prevention is better than cure. No doubt about it.

What went wrong?

If I used to pride myself for being able to breastfeed SJ for nearly 22 months (breaking the record for SY by 7 months plus without any mix of formula at all), I'm not sure if I feel the same anymore now. Would you look at it as a success if your child ends up not drinking any milk at all as early as 2 years old when you decided to stop breastfeeding?

I'm devastated to bits. I've been struggling to decide if I could really stop when she reaches two in two months time. Now that she refused milk of any type (formula, chocolate flavour or even fresh milk) in any form factor (bottle, cup, straw, syringe) under any condition (hot or cold), I not only ran out of ideas but also patience and hope. Not to mention that everyone blames me now too, sigh. If I've not been so bull-headed in refusing to mix formula for her when she's still small, I might not have this problem. Look at SY. She has been given formula at 6 months (despite my consent, of course!), and she's been drinking milk like water now.

What went wrong? I've tried feeding her bottle before she reached 1 and she still drank from it. Maybe I should not be lazy when I was at home - pumped and feed consistently instead of nursing directly during the weekends. Actually, when we realised that only the babysitter could feed her bottle (not even Daddy or Amah or me), I should have done something. But I didn't know what to do. Tried all means to feed her with cup or bottle, all to no avail. I've even passed some formula samples to the babysitter to try, but SJ didn't want to drink. She just wanted EBM, and the only time I saw her drinking from the bottle was at the babysitter's house. Oh, what a cute sight - I tell you I've never felt so serene watching her drink her own milk after she turned 1 at home. And then, the babysitter left. So now, SJ didn't drink any milk during the day time.

Many people rationed that it's ok for a child not to drink milk, as long as she takes other food such as porridge/rice or any other solid. I could easily substitute the nutrients that she lacks from the other types of food. Furthermore, what's so great about milk? It's not as good as we were led to believe. Hmmm... but I still find it hard to accept.

So, how long more should I continue to breastfeed her? Many people was surprised that I'm still pumping now, and think that it's high time to stop. I've reduced my pumping frequency to 1 time yesterday, and I could still get the same amount as when I pumped twice. Over time, it would reduce, I'm sure. Luckily SY still drinks my EBM, else it would have gone to waste. I'm thinking to stop pumping entirely after SJ turns two, maybe will drag a month more since we're planning for a family trip and it's easier to breastfeed when traveling. Well, I hope by then she would want to drink milk...

Wish us luck!

What Happened Next

This post has become so backdated that I’m not sure if I should still write about it. Anyway, since I’ve started it, and I don’t like to leave things unfinished, I’d better go on with it before I abandon the idea altogether. But I’ll be as brief as could be, so if you need more details, feel free to ask me. The last post has generated many offline queries, and I’m glad that I decided to share that with the parents out there.

Ok, so we went to see the Speech Therapist (ST) in Island Hospital. We went thru the usual Q&A session and some historical background checks. I was a bit surprised that I could so easily forget some important milestones of my kid, but luckily I managed to trace back from my kids’ blog. Yeah, I guess age is catching up. When the ST has finished questioning us, she went on to assess our kid. I could see how SY warmed up to her instantly, doing as instructed and answering her questions very well. Then there’s the reading game, with stickers as rewards. At times, she got a bit out of control, but the ST gently steered her back to adhere to instructions either with more fun activitiy games or stern disapproval.

After close to ~2 hours, she concluded that it’s mostly related to phonological development. SY seemed to have problem with the “backsound”, such as words starting with ‘g’ or ‘k’. For instance, she pronounced ‘gate’ as ‘date’, or “cart” as “tart”. I found a more comprehensive list here (where SY's case was categorised as velar fronting). So she passed us some exercises that we need to do with SY everyday, mostly on practicing the correct pronunciation. I asked her if she also thought that my child has ADD symptom, but she brushed that aside and said that SY is just a bubbly and cheeky girl. That’s because ADD child would not progress much in learning due to the lack of attention, but since SY is picking things quite fast, so there’s really nothing to worry. Dyslexia is certainly out of the picture by now, as it’s still too early to judge.

Oh yes, this was later seconded by SY’s school principal. Right after we’ve met up with the psychologist, the principal called to inform that she’d talked to some experts while she was having conference outstation and they told her that it’s perfectly normal for a kid less than 5 year old to see things in mirror images. When I told her that the psychologist suspected that SY might have ADD instead, the principal voiced her disagreement right away, she really didn’t think so since SY was rather quiet in school, nothing like an ADD child.

Back to the speech therapies, we’re advised to come back for more sessions, but since her schedule was full till the end of year (yes, this happened last year, so you could imagine how outdated this post is), she recommended us to see her colleague instead. It was better too because we requested for weekends, while she didn’t work on weekends. As of now, we’ve gone thru 4 sessions with her colleague, covering:

i. “k” and “c” sound
ii. “sh” or quiet sound
iii. “s” or snake sound
iv. “ch” – train or ‘sneezy’ sound

So far, SY’s making great progress, and it’s also easier to correct her now. According to the Speech Therapist, it's a good thing to start her early, since she might feel embarassed to be corrrected when she grow older. I sure hope things would be better soon!