The last month has been full of
sickness… and some celebration.
About a month ago Henri had his
first case of Bronchitis. It was extremely traumatic - full of sleepless
nights, vomit and refusal of medicine… probably I was the most traumatized… I
worry so much about the little guy.
On the second day of his fever
when it got close to 104 we decided to take him in to the doctor – thankfully in
Taiwan not all doctor’s offices are closed on the weekend. We were given a
truckload of medicine to give Henri – zero of which we were able to get or keep
down. The next day we took him to a different doctor (who gave the same
diagnosis) but was able to prescribe his medicine in a way that would increase
our chances of success (i.e. suppository, combination of drugs, etc.).
God bless the nurse at Adventist.
When you tell the doctor that you can’t make your child take or keep down the
medicine they basically tell you to try harder. The nurse showed us. She
combined syrup and a powder medicine into a ½ teaspoon concoction. After Henri
showed her it wasn’t going to be taken willingly (through a straw or cup) she
knew we were going to have to restrain him and send it down his unwilling little
throat with a syringe. After her tutorial our success rate in administering
Henri’s medicine went up exponentially. Maxime is better at this than me… Once
the medicine was going in and staying in Henri started to improve right away
and while his coughing was painful to hear he was on the up and up.
In other news…
Henri attended the two-year
birthday party of his girlfriend, Jacie. They celebrated at Yu Kids followed by
dinner at Chilis and present opening at Jacie’s house where Henri did manage a
few bites of cake before issuing his trademark “no” to anything you try to feed
him that isn’t the one of the five things he is willing to eat. Henri got Jacie
a yipping puppy that is never far from her side, at least for now.
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| A somber Jacie, with Tristyn and Hen. |
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| Hen's got that crazy look in his eyes... |
The next week was Thanksgiving.
Our neighbors, The Kasprzak’s, celebrated with us, along with Jenny’s parents,
The Crawford’s. The food was great – The turkey was perfectly cooked (by the
Shangri-La) and the sides were the usual, familiar (and delicious) sides. We
had a kids table that I was not even close to being sent to (finally). The only
hiccup was that my building’s property manager showed up right as we were
sitting down to eat with the hot water heater repairman. She doesn’t speak English
so after a little confusion we allowed them to go see the heater while we started
dinner. Jenny’s dad said grace – but during the prayer, the property manager,
at the behest of the repairman, started turning off and on our kitchen sink and
saying in Chinese what probably amounted to “how about now, now? Okay, now?”
through the window that separates the kitchen from the utility room. They were
oblivious and I was irritated, but only for a few minutes. The rest of the
evening was perfect. The kids love each other and play well together and it
really felt like we were in the States, minus having my family around.
I’m excited that Christmas is
around the corner and that I get to share it with my mother. She arrives in
less than two weeks and I look forward to seeing what she thinks about Taiwan
and having her spend some valuable time with Henri. The Christmas tree is up –
I’ve downloaded large amounts of Christmas music and I’m just really excited
about it this year.
Along with the Christmas Spirit -
sadly the last couple of weeks have also ushered in Taiwan’s winter – which means
we won’t be seeing much of the sun henceforth. I hope it isn’t as dreary as
last year - but if last year was the norm, a blue sky will not be making an
appearance until around May when the extreme heat sets in and just burns off
any clouds that dare appear.
Due to my quest to break every small
electronic device that crosses my path, I now have no camera until Christmas. In
four months, I have broken two phones and a camera by simply dropping them. So
anything I post on the blog for the time being will have to have come from
friends or Maxime… Though I can’t see how much slower this will make my posts
since I have been pretty slow as it is…
Here are a couple pics from our night out with the grown up Kasprzak's - in honor of Jenny's 30th Birthday:
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