Asha 7+YO, Rana 4+YO

Asha

She is in 2nd grade of primary school now, despite the fact that she just turned 7 a few months back. My soft kind hearted girl. Often she complained her stuff are missing from her bag/pencil case. Pencil, pen, cards. Her friends took them and not giving it back. I tried to teach her that it's ok to say no if she doesn't want to lend it. Really, problematic. I hope she learns to say no when she really meant it.
She's growing well. I'm not worried about her performance in school. She learns fast by practice. Her English and Bahasa are good, I'm not worried. Math she needs more help to practice and her teacher included her in Math supplementary class. Longer school hours in some days but it does help her. Since I'm not home mostly to help her review her math.

On other notes, I am trying to slowly get her used to 5 times daily prayer. I got her to do Subuh and Magrib. Next I need to slowly introduce Isya, and at the end, Zuhur and Ashar. The last two are more difficult since I'm not home. I also need to teach her the tahiyat doa.

She sleeps by herself now. We don't need to cuddle her anymore. With her everything has to be slowly introduced and get used to and it'll take some time. She also showered, wear clothes by herself now.

Her eczema is getting better alhamdulillah thanks to TF 4life. It still itched time to time but not flaring anymore, just dry. We managed her itch at school by putting on a stocking sock under her school socks. There was one time that her eczema flared badly during holiday. It took around 2-3 months to get it back as it used to. While it only took 1 week to worsen. Horrible. I so wish it to go away soon. Sadly it has spread to her left leg which once was clear.

Rana

She is in K1 now. She is surprisingly more independent and more focused than her sister. A side note for me that even though she is so, she still needs my attention. She is still hot tempered. But her scratching attacks have lessened now. Previously whenever she's angry she'll scratch her sister. She is entering her sweet most adorable phase now. She takes off her own clothes, put them in the laundry bin, can do everything else by herself. Though sometimes she needs to be spoonfeed. Acted like grown ups most of the time.

Asha 6 YO, Rana 3YO

Time just flies so fast.

Asha will be entering P1 in just a few days, and Rana will be going to Zulfa for Nursery.

I'm more concerned with Asha going to a new school. Frankly, I am a bit nervous myself. This could be a different life for us. I need to be more focused with her studies. FYI, I am a LAZY mom. I'm no ambitious tiger mom. Realizing that P1 is the start to studying just stresses me out. I don't want to be a kiasu parent. But I don't want her to fail too. 

She needs to make new friends all over again, start in a much bigger school, I'm so worried whether she can buy her own food (she should, because nowadays I ask her to pay her own stuff). I just pray she'll like it and she can adapt nicely. 

Rana on the other hand is going to school with auntie school bus whom she already knows.. Has friends whom she already knows. So it should be easier for her right? :D. I want to be there to send them all off on their first day of school and I'm squeezing my brain in how do I do it. 


So anyway.. 

Milestones....

Asha
1. Really into drawing
2. Really into minecraft
3. Milk teeth still intact, wonder when it'll start to fall off
4. Still cranky and annoying when sleepy
5. Survived Starwars movie in the cinema 
6. Bathe by herself most of the time, eats by herself most of the time 
7. Her eczema comes and goes but it's there most of the time and aggravated by wrong soap and hot weather. Now I'm only using Fix it balm and coconut oil. I do use steroid sometimes, but I realized that it will always come back and it will only get bigger. Unless she has an infection I avoid its usage.
8. She's now attending art class, mandarin class (private), swimming class. All by her own request. 

Rana
1. Potty Trained (I'll post details on this in a separate post)
2. Needs to cut her hair
3. More singlish than Asha, better Indonesian spoken
4. Happy singing dancing toddler

My reminder. 
DO limit their ipad hours  slowly. They are quite balanced but just in case.
Asha is entering her 7th year. I have trained her slowly to pray Maghrib, but I need to prepare her for other times as well. My homework is how to make her understand that this is obligatory. I hope madrasah teaches the importance. 

Asha 4 yrs 10mos, Rana 23mos

Since September eczema attack everything was more or less under control for  Asha. When she eats something which has dairy contents her eczema would itch and flare red a bit. If this happens it will take about a week to recover. Sometimes it just flares up and I don't know why. Maybe something she ate from school.

We found 3 new stuff that helps:
1. Emu oil. This is good to help fix broken skin underneath. Unlike aveeno which kind of like protect the skin from outside.
2. Shea butter cream. This is a cheap and pretty good moisturiser. It's easily absorbed too.
3. Tea tree oil. Now I know essential oils are not so much recommended due to its dangers if used not in proper dosage.. But it really helps the irritated skin and reduce the itch. I usually give it night time when she tends to get itchy due to aircon.
Asha's Milestone

Despite her eczema she is progressing well. Nowadays she takes more interest in trying to read everything that she can read. And it has improved as well. Even though we still need 2 days to complete a thin book but I'm sure it'll improve. She is as usual such an active outdoor kid. Actually both of them are. That's why I like bringing them outside to parks where they can roam free.
She lost 1.5kg since her eczema attack in September. I hope all those food goes into fixing her gut so she'll get better soon. She will be a K2 student next year! I'm so excited!! But it's still very difficult to wake her up in the morning. All the whinings and cryings sometimes gets in my nerves.

Rana's Milestones

Her vocabs increased a lot. I can communicate with her easier even tho sometimes I still don't understand what she wants. She's very expressive tho. She's a very active, brave, and carefree girl. Got a slight problem sometimes with her bowels. I'm still trying to figure out what to do best. Always fight with her sis, likes to disturb the sis, picking up fights, high sense of competition with her sis. I think this sharing concept sink in real slow. Cos I remember me and my sis always fight over things til we were big hahahaa.

My (and Asha's) Eczema Fight

It has been a few months since the first allergy attack. To tell you thr truth since that day her right foot skin was never the same.. And truthfully the eczema actually spread. But since it wasn't flaring nor  very itchy I only put some creams daily. So everywhere she goes she wears socks.

Until last month end of August. We went back from a Hari Raya visit and my friend gave her a box of cow milk! Otw home her face started to swell and she had a worst round of allergy attack. This time it really spread. And the skin became so inflamed it hurt when it went under the water.

I finally resorted to a 3 days dose of steroid when the doctor said her skin was infected.. Not done with that, a week after that she got hfmd which makes it worst and she even got allergy hives at the end of hfmd.

Me and asha was really at the end of our wits. She kept on crying and scratching and i kept on yelling and pinching. I went back to see the doctor and she gv me desowan for the hives.

You see i was never a fan of steroid creams. But I believe that using it for 2-3days will be less harmful.

Since start I started browsing for ways to improve her eczema. I tried soaking her in epsom salt. Give her high dose of Probiotics. But this time round i was so determined to try everything.

Turns out that the high dose of lacto gg from the start was not a very good choice. I read somewhere that it's better to start off in small doses for the body to adapt before moving on to higher dosage gradually. Before the 2nd allergy flare up it was showing improvement but then after the flare ups we were back to square one.

I tried a few things but during my absence from work I noticed that even with all the recommended supplements and her skin even under constant Moisturizing is still so dry and flaky and it didn't show any improvement at all. Something must be wrong from the inside. So i watched her diet and decided to take out soy milk from her diet and watch and see. I searched for the milk replacement and decided to try on rice milk or air tajin in Indonesian.

Alhamdulillah several days after that it wss showing tremendous improvement. I believe in the leaky gut theory which i believe it is better to heal her insides first before the skin could get better.

So in short what worked for her 2nd allergy management is:
1. Take supplements which boosts her immune system. I bought the oceankids supplement since it was no gelatine. And contains zinc and echinachea.
2. Take omega 3 supplements or give salmon once in a while to boost regeneration process
3. Take Probiotic. She took 100mil dosage per day for a few weeks. Followed with 1 bil dosage etc til mb one day she can handle the 20bil dosage.
4. Take high dose of vit C. For her it's max 500mg a day.
5. Take virgin olive oil. Here it's sold as Oliva forte in guardian or Watson's. 60ml for $89. Expensive but worth a try. Some articles said that virgin coconut oil helps too. If i was in Indonesia I'd go with virgin coconut oil since it surely will be cheaper.
Moisturizing wise I bought:
1. Maya severe eczema cream for worst conditions and Maya eczema cream for normal conditions.
2. For her cracked skin I used the Maya skin healing cream that contains turmeric which is really good for anti inflammation and anti biotic.
3. Moogoo Soothing Skin Cream. THIS cream is good for skin that needs moisture for long hours. Plus it helps your skin to fix the top layer of the skin which most eczema sufferers are having problems with. I usually only use it at night. Cos Asha always said the cream stings at the beginning. So I only apply after she is asleep.

When the Health Champion shop is out of stock on Maya products I used other creams which contains no fragrance and no parabens at the very least.

Alternatives:
1. For flare up skin i used physiogel AI cream which you can only get in hospital pharmacy
2. Under control eczema skin i used physiogel cream which you can get just anywhere
3. Cetaphil cream for extra dry skin
4. Aveeno baby eczema cream
5.Neosporin eczema cream
(the last two items can only be bought from US ol shop. I usually buy from iherb.com.  Some ols in Singapore has it but i forgot the names)
6. Cetaphil/physiogel lotion for other parts which has no eczema

That's about it I guess. Combinations of a good diet and extra knowledge of what can be done to resolve the problem naturally is a must. I actually don't want her to grow up with some food total restrictions. I am determined to introduce her allergens again as she got older bit by bit. But for now I want to let her digestive system to heal and mature first.

One more thing, i know all mothers love to see their kids eat more. But it is said that in order for the gut to heal faster don't over burden it with too much job a.k.a don't overeat. Makes sense. Explains why Bram's eczema usually subsides during Ramadhan. So I do not force her to eat nowadays.

I also noticed that since then she has been getting more sleep which is good. Means her body is repairing itself more.

In the end all the efforts are meaningless without prayers. I prayed day and night for Allah to lessen her pain, relieve her from her eczema and give me strength throughout. The knowledge above is only possible because Allah guides me and the strength Allah lent me.

About Allergies

Last week, approximately on Tuesday her legs are suddenly full of red bumps. Signs of allergy. My kids get small allergies alot. It usually comes out and once we stop the allergens it will jz disappear.

But until thursday it's still spreading. On friday it spread to her face. And I thought oh well it should subside soon. On saturday it was worse. Half of her face was swollen. She couldn't open one eye. I panicked. We were in Batam, I was sick too and didn't know where to go. I only brought zyrtec with me.

So I went to local pd. I suspected he doesn't tend to kids with eczema problems often.

This is my first time turning to steroids. I didn't want to use it but it was really bad and sudden I was scared it would spread elsewhere.

One of the few things that made the flares worse was the heat in Batam and the dusty air. It made it all really bad. Her face becomes more itchy when we went out of the air conditioned room. Plus I stopped all her dairy products temporarily. Especially her cow milk. Yogurt is still fine, cheese as well..

Now back in Singapore. First thing I did on Monday morning was...I took her to her usual Pd. She gave me the same type of steroid but made by original manufacturer in FRance, cream for the face, lotion for legs. She never gives steroids to my kids, ever. Just this once. She told me no more than 5 days. I used the steroid from the Indo pd for 2 days already so I can only use the new one for another 3 days. She gave me physiogel AI cream as well. The super expensive cream which apparently works even for Rana last time round. For antihistamine she told me to give 2 diff types. Aerius for morning and Zyrtec for night.

Alhamdulillah she looks better now. Plus today Allah gives me a cool wonderful weather to help her heal her eczema.

I did ask the PD abt the trigger cause I myself have no clue what it was. I suspected it was the chicken seaweed that we bought. She said it could be the additives. I don't think it's MsG. There must be another stronger additives inside it. Or maybe a preserve additive.

As far as I know, Asha is sensitive to shellfishes. But now I realize I must be cautious when buying frozen foods as well. And any other things with additives. This one when I looked it up was a product of China. So never ever buy anything from China!

I didn't enjoy my holiday in Batam. Even though I enjoyed the hotel. But left me with footnotes and lessons learned for next trips.

Rana 17months, Asha 4yrs 4 months

Asha

She's in K1 now. She's learning spelling, writing and spelling in school. Arabic and English. Reading... We'll get there eventually. Speaks mostly in English. With some mixed bahasa.

She enjoys outdoor playing more nowadays. Lesser ipads. She gets along better with her sis. She loves apples and watermelons.

She still nags for attention and whines. Still hard to wake up and get ready for school. Still listens more to the teacers compared to us. She is now 105cm and 18kg.

Aura

Rana is active. Likes to wrestle. Loves hanging around with people. She eats whatever her sis eats.

She speaks randomly for words. But ibu is very difficult hahahaha. She is about 10kg now. She walks everywhere run everywhere and so lovable.

She still sleeps early and wakes up early. Still allergic to cow formula. She is small in stature big in energy. She's a very expressive girl. Her biggest milestone is her increasing vocabs, and she can tell when she wants to go poo poo. Her frequent word is "mau mau".

Asha 4yo

She is officiallly 4yo!!

Her milestones:
- she is growing up. Now it is easier to reason out with her. We still fight occasionally but not that bad. Now she is only whiny if she's hungry or sleepy
- able AND willing to eat on her own. Using spoon and fork. Well sometimes she's just lazy but she is willing now
- shows interest in books and writing and spelling. During holiday she writes and draws evrywhere. Including my walls.
- she slowly learns to spell and can memorize words. She can imitate writing too
- attention span is long enough to watch a 90mins movie on movie cinema.

I wish she grows up well but I sure will miss the lil Asha :')