Waaaaay too much of a good thing

The other day, whilst on her evening rounds in the yard, Rosabelle spotted a dolly pram walker belonging to an older boy, Mai Dou, and insisted on pushing it around. It’s not as sturdy as her usual walker we use at home, as it’s very light, and we need to hold the front down to avoid having her topple over from leaning her whole weight on it, but she liked it very much all the same, so much that Mai Dou’s family asked that we bring it home to play with it.

And play she did, having so much fun and looking so satisfied with herself when taking careful, sturdy steps with it, going many rounds around the house, pushing an imaginary dolly.

You can see her two front teeth pretty closely in this below photo.

There she is, hard at work, pushing the home walker, and even turning back to wave at us whilst supporting herself gingerly with the other hand.

I’m glad she is still keeping her energy levels up, in spite of an affected appetite since Thursday. Sigh! I only have myself to blame – as she needs to take iron supplements these days, we’ve been giving her a lot of high Vitamin C fruits like oranges, kiwis, papayas, pomelos, and mangoes. Thinking she would get sick of these fruits, I saw grapefruit in the supermarket the other day and bought two for her. She actually quite liked the grapefruit that night, eating up almost a third of the fruit (although she would give an ever so slight grimace from the sour taste of the fruit).

That night, when she awoke from her sleep and the nanny was carrying her, she actually regurgitated and vomited a palmful of food out – I could see the grapefruit bits in it. Uh-oh, the fruit must be too sour/acidic for her poor tummy, and it was her first time taking it, so I should not have given her so much. On the same day, she also tried salmon and cai xin for the first time, but we ruled those out as Wayne and I also ate the same thing with no effect, and these are not known allergens.

At 5-plus that morning, she again vomited on her bed (more this time), and only managed to finish half of her steamed egg breakfast that morning. For lunch, she refused to take even a single spoonful of food, and even passed runny stools twice in the day. For dinner, she only ate some foods when I bought some bread prior and used the bread to wrap her foods in it (she likes bread). She even rejected her favourite fruit of mango. When she vomited yet again on her bed on Thursday night (maybe ate slightly more than she could for dinner, so she cleverly rejected the fruit), I called home. Oh dear me… my brother-in-law said grapefruits are not suitable for kids as they are too sour, and the amount I fed her was too much for a baby. Poor girl!

Only good thing is every time after she vomited/passed runny stools, she remained in high spirits, and has maintained a usual, active level. Phew! But as she has not been eating her usual amounts, we’ve had to lay off the iron supplements, as it can further make her stomach feel queasy, especially on an empty stomach. So I’ve been making sure she gets enough milk, and after my brother-in-law suggested soya bean milk (more easily digested), she took some for breakfast yesterday.

For her lunch and dinner yesterday, she ate slightly more than the day before, and we’ve been making her foods more watery/mushy, so hopefully it helps. Fingers crossed she’ll be picking up her appetite soon, but just in case, I’m only giving her two servings of fruits for these days (as opposed to four servings).

Other than that, Rosabelle has been active and well, and she even took her first ride on the swing with me yesterday morning when we brought her to Si’De Park (where I bought some English books for her too).

She has a lot of books now, both English and Chinese, and especially the nanny (Wayne at times) would read her the Chinese books, and she would actually patiently look at the pages, sitting/laying down on their laps. When she wants a change of story/book, she will go ‘Eh! Eh! Eh!’ and point at something else until they change the story/book.

But me? I’m not so well now – since last night, after bringing her back from her evening walk, I started feeling queasy and have been having a case of the runs (and vomited twice since). The only thing suspect I ate was an apple, and both the nanny and Wayne have been eating whatever else I’ve been eating, so it can’t be food poisoning. Sigh…maybe I wished too hard for her vomiting/diarrhea to go away, so much that it has befallen me instead. Well, better me than my daughter, I say!