Kitakits with Sheila

'Twas a short biz trip by Sheila.  We met up with her on her last night (Thursday) and had dinner at Nando's with Flor and Rommel's family.  Nice to hear that most of the senior managers at our beloved ex-company, Intel, are on board Lattice Semiconductor.  It's already 'Intel Inside' there she said :)

Back to dates

With Sarah getting older and a househelp (Esther) to take care of her, Ravi and I have started our weekly dates again. Nothing fancy, just the usual movie dates, dinner and drinking at one of our favorite pubs (OB's, Fireplace and Bierlin's Bier Houz). 

Before Sarah came along, we go out at least once a week.  Sometimes two or three dates in a week!  So it was understandably frustrating for Ravi to have his partner in crime "absent" for several months.  Ravi missed the going outs more than I do, because Sarah became my priority when she came out. Naturally, women focus on the baby so much so that men take a backseat on the priority queue.  Of course, Ravi understands how it was so he went 'solo' for a while. He didn't pressure me or made me feel guilty for not joining him. 

Now that Sarah's getting more independent, I feel much more comfortable leaving her once a week to have that date with my husband. I figure if the parents are happy going out together, that happiness will naturally cascade down to the children.

Education fund for Sarah

We're starting Sarah's education plan this month through AIA.  Ravi and I settled on AIA Insurance as the better and more stable company among the market right now.  The policy is to pay for her education fund until she's 18 years old.  In case something happens to either parents (death or PWD), the insurance will guarantee the balance and ensure Sarah will have it when she turns 18.  We believe it's better to start building children funds as early as one can.   

Sarah's URTI

Ravi brought back a nasty cough/cold combo from his Korea/Taiwan biz trip (Feb 26-Mar 7).  His mother caught it, followed by Reena and finally Sarah.  Esther and I thankfully were spared otherwise it'll be a nightmare with everybody sick in the house.
 
I was giving Sarah colds medicines given by her pediatrician but after a week and half, she was not getting better.  It was Saturday when I finally took her to Dr. Hwang's clinic at Islands Hospital.  She said it was serious, with diagnosis of upper respiratory track infection or UPTI. 

Sarah underwent 2 physiotherapy sessions where her back were ‘pounded’ by the therapists.  The poor girl kept on crying and struggling but what to do, it has to be done. 

She also had 3 sessions a day of inhalation therapy using a nebulizer.  There were two medications (combivent and ?) that needed to be administered directly to her lungs, hence the need to do it in the hospital.  After a couple of days, it was reduced to twice a day.   We had to drive up and down the hospital every 5 hours or so for the nebulizer therapy.

Sarah’s condition improved a lot after just a day.  She’s now on the last leg of the nebulizer therapy, another couple more days and the doctor said she’s good as new.

Lesson of the story:  Never treat cough and/or colds as something simple.  It can really turn for the worse especially for infants/toddlers.  After 4-5 days of medications with no signs of improvement, bring the child to the hospital.

marketmanila.com (tshirt) winner

I won a shirt from one of marketmanila.com's mini raffle contests!  I joined for fun and wasn't really expecting to win.  So it was a very pleasant surprise to see my name as one of the two winners.  Wore a silly grin for a few minutes after I read that  =)