Post-School Trip Illness

I thought Alycia was the second kid in her group who had fallen ill after the school's day-trip to Sekinchan on Saturday. What do I know? Yesterday, Alycia told me that almost everyone who went on the school trip in her class had fallen ill and were absent from school. With so much walking under the killer hot sun in the afternoon in the paddy field, fishing pond, kampung and visits to other places that were exposed to the scorching hot sun, who could have gone unscathed by the sun-grilling aftermath? I know I will never be able to survive a trip where I will be exposed to the hot sun. My destiny is such that I will either have a massive migraine, a fever, throat infection or general feeling of malaise if I am exposed to prolonged hours under the scorching hot sun. I shudder to think of what's going to happen to the girls and me next month as we will be making a trip to Legoland - the land of long queues under hot sun, waiting for rides! After Legoland, we will be heading to Universal Studio in Singapore - another land of grilling humans under the hot sun. I am going to arm myself with huge brollies and bottles of water. My duty as the kids' slave will soon begin and I am dreading it!

Yesterday, after Alycia returned from school, she looked really jaded and her body was still slightly warm. After a lunch of chicken porridge, she lay down on the floor of the walk-in wardrobe and dozed off. I woke her up and asked her to shower. After her shower, I blew dry her hair with the hairdryer. As I was blowing her hair with the hairdryer, I realized how much grown up my precious baby was. I cannot even remember when the last time was that I helped her to dry her hair. I think it was before Cass was born and that was over 5 years ago, gawd!! As I was helping her with the hairdryer, she started to chat with me and told me all that had transpired in her school yesterday. All of a sudden, I felt like I missed this big baby, who has grown up to be so independent as a 'tai kar cheh' (big sister) figure, yet would sometimes go hungry for my attention and TLC, just like what I am giving to Cass now.

Did I tell you that on a few occasions recently, Alycia insisted on sleeping with me on the bed in my bedroom and refused to sleep in her own bed? She argued that if Cass could do so occasionally, why couldn't she do it too? And the hubs and I had to allow her to be wedged between us the entire night, just so to please our very precious first born, the baby whom we yearned to have for years and wanted so much to share our bed with.