Foong Speaks Her Mind

I remember when I used to get a full night’s sleep without disturbances. I get my full 8 hours beauty sleep. I could wake up early. I was not sleepy all the time.

Now…I can’t remember the last time I had a full night’s undisturbed sleep.

My son is almost three now but he is still waking up in the middle of the night but not for milk. Mostly, it is because of the weather.

Yep. We live in an area where it is quite cold at night regardless of whether it rained the whole day or it was darn hot the whole day. So, when he gets too cold, he’d wake up and start calling for me. And I have to go over to his room (yes, he sleeps in his own room!) and camp over at his room for the night.

This has been happening so much and on such a daily basis, it is wearing me down. For one thing, I work late into the night most days. It’s due to my part-time job as freelance writer and it involves a lot of online work. And by that, I mean A LOT of work in looking for jobs. I check up on job boards and etc to bid on projects. Nowadays, it is lagging quite a bit since India is spoiling our market. They are blardy bidding $2 per hour and even $1 per article rates. Blardy crazy. I sure as hell am not gonna write 100s of words for a measly $1 or $2! So, a lot of ‘buyers’ are choosing those with these ultra low stupid bids.

On top of that, I have my blogging to keep up and several other websites to maintain. Also, I have two major personal projects I am working on but hardly have time to really ‘work on it’. Yep, I have obviously bitten off more than I can chew at this moment in time. I realised that and now, I am considering letting one or two of my blogs just die off…but I don’t know which one to ‘kill’ off. Yet.

But I digress.

So, I usually work till 2am to 3am everyday and my son will wake up around 3.30am or 5am (whatever time when it gets cold) and I had just dragged myself into bed. So, in the end, I’d drag myself over to his room and just collapse onto his kingsize mattress (yeah, his bed is much much bigger than our puny Queen size bed) and sleep there.

That’s why I am sleeping apart from my husband most days. Sometimes, he’d also go over to my son’s room and we’d all three sleep there with my son in between of us. So, yeah, we sleep apart A LOT. And I realise this is not that good for any marriage.

I really don’t know what to do anymore. Short of moving my son to our room, it seems like I will have to sleep in two rooms every night, a few hours in my room and a few hours in my son’s room. I shudder to think what would have happened if a second child comes along.

I’d probably have to ‘permanently’ move into their room!

I know, many seasoned parents will say that all this will pass and I will look back and wish they would need me as much as my son does now before he becomes a sullen, angst-filled, rebellious teenager who’d rather be dead than be seen with his mom.

But for now, I barely have five hours of sleep every day for the past year or so. I think I am more like a walking zombie by now and sometimes, I don’t even know what I am typing here anymore…. Even now, I am so darn sleepy, the words are swimming before my eyes even as I tyep…

Zzzzzz…….

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Sigh…not a day can pass by without some fireworks over some racial issue between those monkeys politicians either in parliament or now at the Penang state assembly as reported by Malaysiakini:

The fireworks started when Deputy Chief Minister (II) Dr P Ramasamy accused the Umno-controlled Public Service Department (PSD) of ‘tearing up’ job application forms submitted by non-Malays.

-Malaysiakini

I wouldn’t know whether it is true or not since I am not a government servant but all this bickering over racial issues (because obviously this is a racial issue) is getting rather tiring.

And sickening.

And old.

And carries bad connotations for the people as a whole.

The society and the world as a whole would have been a better place if we all ARE colour blind and have the wide-eyed innocence of children.

It is situations like this that reminds me part of the lyrics of Michael Learns To Rock’s Sleeping Child:

If all the people around
The world
They had a mind like yours
We’d have no fighting and no wars
There would be lasting peace on earth
If all the kings and all
The leaders
Could see you here this way
They would hold the earth in their arms
They would learn to watch you play

And here’s a video of the complete song…

I don’t know why but each time I listen to this song, I get moved to tears. Not only because of how beautiful the song is but because of how true the lyrics are and how helpless we all are in the face of so much turmoil in the world.

When will we ever look beyond skin colour just like the way small children perceive people?

For my son, any girl older than him is ‘che che’ (that’s older sister in chinese), any boy older than him is ‘kor kor’ (that’s older brother in chinese), any children younger than him are ‘baby’ (since he’s a toddler, so anyone younger than him are obviously babies) and adults are all ‘uncle’ and ‘auntie’.

He doesn’t know the cute little girl he played with during a dinner function is a Malay and though he doesn’t speak Malay, the two of them had a smashing fun time running around and laughing in joy.

He also doesn’t know the bubbly chubby baby he touched and cuddled during our vacation is white and seemed to like touching her chubby fingers and watching her coo and smile.

He did not notice the ‘kor kor’ he always meet in the elevator is Indian.

Nor did he notice the auntie or uncle who’d smile and talk to him are Chinese, Malay, Indian, etc, etc…

So, yes, I totally agree with MLTR:

If all the people around
The world
They had a mind like yours
We’d have no fighting and no wars
There would be lasting peace on earth

When will we adults ever learn to GROW UP and think like children?

If only we’d all look and think of the sleeping child:

Every time we have…

Violent thoughts

Racial thoughts

Evil thoughts

We’d realise that we are only caretakers of this world for the future generations.

Sigh..sometimes I don’t even know why I bother to read the online news like Malaysiakini every day when it is so depressing.

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My son is not exactly a very, very hyperactive child but he sure is a bundle of energy and sometimes I’d feel he is so active, I could not keep up with him. At the very best, it kept me active and on my toes all the time. At the very least, nobody else could really keep up with his many shenanigans, especially his doting grandparents who pamper him no end.

When it comes to children, I know a lot of people will say that it is better that they are active than not as it shows that they are healthy and fine. However, there are children who genuinely have a disorder known as ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Many people just brush the ADHD symptoms off as mere childish hyperactivity or even as stubbornness.

ADHD here is a very little known disorder here but I have a few friends whose children were diagnosed with this condition and trust me, it is not easy. So, what is ADHD?

I found this mental health article on ADHD which fully explained what ADHD is and thought it is very informative for parents who thinks their child is way more hyperactive than normal children are or that there is something not right about their child’s behaviour.

ADHD may sound not as serious as other complicated health problems but it is serious for the parents and child in question. Sometimes due to this disorder, the poor child are thought of as being naughty or recalcitrant.

That’s why it is very important for parents to know that their child has ADHD otherwise, the poor child may forever be misunderstood and considered as ’slow-learner’ or ’stubborn’ or ‘naughty’.

Here are a list of symptoms of a child who could possibly have ADHD taken from here:

• often fails to give close attention to details or makes careless mistakes in school work, work or other activities
• often has difficulty sustaining attention in tasks or play activities
• often does not seem to listen when spoken to directly
• often has difficulty organising tasks and activities
• is often forgetful in daily activities
• often does not follow through on instructions and fails to finish school work, chores, or duties in the workplace (not due to oppositional behaviour or failure to understand instructions)
• often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort
• often avoids, dislikes, or is reluctant to engage in tasks that require sustained mental effort
• is often easily distracted by extraneous stimuli
• often fidgets with hands or feet or squirms in seat
• often runs about or climbs excessively in situations in which it is inappropriate
• often has difficulty playing or engaging in leisure activities quietly
• often leaves seat in classroom or in other situations in which remaining seated is expected
• is often “on the go” or often acts as if driven by a motor
• often talks excessively
• often has difficulty awaiting turn
• often interrupts or intrudes on others
• Some hyperactive impulsive or inattentive symptoms that caused impairment were present before age seven years
• There must be clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning

Of course, to get an accurate diagnosis, you should always consult your family physician and check with him for referrals to a qualified specialist on ADHD.

Now, if your child do not have ADHD but you still feel he is much too hyperactive…here are some calming tips for a hyperactive child:

1. Cut out sugar from your child’s diet. Sugar provides him with the extra energy so if you give him nutritionally balanced meals without the unnecessary energy from sugars in candies and sweets, he will have less pent-up energy to burn
2. Let him burn off his extra energy - take him to the park, for a walk or even for a run so that he could burn off all his pent up energy. It is also good for him to be outdoors for some fresh air and clean healhty activities.
3. Engage him in quiet activities more often and teach him by example, that you can also have fun while doing quiet activities like colouring, painting, reading, jigsaw puzzles, board games, baking, cooking, etc.
4. Dance with him! I find this especially fun and exhilarating and a great stress reliever for me too whenever I dance with my son. It is a win-win activity as your child will get to burn off the energy, you get to de-stress and both of you get to spend valuable time together. It need not be any strict dancing format. Just turn up the music and let loose!
5. Teach him nursery rhymes and children’s songs - most small children likes music and rhymes so why not engage in their natural musical sense by teaching them to sing it themselves? Of course it is not easy for them to remember the lines, but who cares? As long as they are enjoying the singing and rhyming, it is good enough.
6. Have a warm bubble bath - my son loves his bathtime and especially so if it is a warm bubble bath where he could pretend he is a dolphin or a waterhorse (yep, as in The Waterhorse movie which he loved). The warm water is good to calm his muscles and help him relax too.
7. Play the mild ‘mud’ wrestling game on the bed - as in wrestle with him and muck around and have a thoroughly enjoyable time without the mud. You can even progress on to pillow fights!
8. Teach him something new and quiet - a new game, a new trick or even something he has never done before and surely he will spend some time learning it and having a great sense of achievement when he finally masters it. This could be learning to build towers using lego to handicrafts such as creating a card, playdough, etc.
9. Play calming classical music - especially in the evenings and turn off the TV and other stimulus. Teach him to close his eyes and just relax and listen to the music. It may be quite a challenge to get a child to do that but it need not be hours. Even a few minutes is good enough.
10. Have a quiet corner -  If he becomes uncontrollable and have become very destructive, put him in a quiet corner and tell him that it is his space to think things through. Tell him it is a special space that belonged to him and he could be whatever he wants to be in that space. This is very different from the ‘punishment’ corner as this quiet corner gives him a place to be by himself and for him think things through. He could even bring a favourite toy or a book with him to that space. It is very much like a treehouse where children like to get away from it all and play in their own make-believe world.

So, that’s it…tips to calm your hyperactive child and if you suspect it could be ADHD, do check with your physician.

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