Entre vomissements et cramps d'estomacs

We are all touched by the nasty stomach bug or viral infection that made the rounds starting with our trustee entry/portal aka Shrek. Shrek began with mild stomach cramps which escalated in severity, soon after I had Baby Ben projectile vomitting for two days straight punctuated with a sleepless night for me. She also had fever and I thought that when it looked like she had recovered somewhat that the worst was over, not so as Shrek soon enough exhibited intense stomach cramps : the kind that twists and turns and wherein revolution inside ones tummy churns and churns until the toxicity decides to chance upon another outlet in which case projectile vomitting begin. It happened exactly like that...I also experienced stomach cramps which for now are half under control grâce à Charbon.

Petit Suisse another soul hyper sensible to bugs of the stomach kind also agonises with cramps and projectile vomitting through the nose and mouth.
Both Petit Suisse and Shrek are languishing in pain and the land of stomach churning.
The bug did not stop there as it claimed another victim in the form of Baby Taz and he too puked uncontrollably mostly liquid gunk.

Christmas Joy indeed...

Lil Miss N's 6th birthday !

I survived eventhough Murphy's Law dictated that when under stress almost everything that can go wrong will and so it is that I was under intense stress today in getting ready for and organising Lil Miss N's 6th birthday. I had thought that I had it all under control but alas I was so far from the truth.
The day began with my massive spring cleaning sweep. I was determined to get the house sparking and spotless (or as spotless as I can possibly get it given the circumstances in this case four pairs of grubby hands/paws and four like minded rambunctious and mischievious underlings). I forged ahead and ploughed/plowed/soldiered my way through and as Murphy's Law has it all four were geared to get in my way and to slow me down at every turn.

I finally completed the sprucing up of the whole apartment but in the process lost my patience and nerve.

Next came the obligatory cake making and baking. Petit Suisse, Lil Miss N and Baby Ben surrounded me and made it almost impossible for me to access the workbench as they were so eager, enthusiastic little helpers who in their eagerness to help crowded me and were haphazardly putting and mixing ingredients much to my dismay but the cake was made and it turned out delicious if I do say so myself.

The decorations were left minimalist because I had run out of time so it did not look all that festive but that was forgiveable.

Games of Twister, Monza and 'Burg Ritter' were played intermittently with 'party bombs' to save the day and then it was 'gâteau d'anniversaire time and candle blowing time'. I had some leftover cake batter so decided to make a second cake albeit thinner and less consequential. Shrek having blocked ears took out the thin round cake instead of the heart-shaped one I had intended. That in the end did not matter too much as the candles were blown, cake was cut and shared amongst Lil Miss N's friends and she opened her presents : Hello Kitty pencil case with accessories, a kit to create her own bnnn me pocket money.

Her friends all left with a bonbonière each complete with little toys and surprises. A good time was had by all eventhough I felt that I could have been much more organised and the party games should have deroulés more smoothly had I not been collée dessus by a little superglue albeit the little party stopper.
Lil Miss N was stoked and visibly happy and all the hard work paid off.

Shrek then attended a work Christmas function. He drank a little too much and the hard liqueurs made their appearance when he returned.

He came home and assured me that he was fine but as Murphy's Law would have it I was prepared...good thing I was prepared given last year's episode.

Anyway Shrek's favourite expression of all time is 'goulot d'étranglement' which means bottleneck or (throttle) and true to form he puked into our household's goulot d'étranglement aka the bathroom sink which was already slightly blocked for quite some time rendering it unfit for use and hopelessly out of order until it has been unblocked by the plumber.


He had a massive hangover is an understatement... I need not get into the gory and peu appetisant details of this episodic vomissement.

He did redeem himself by vaccuuming and taking out the garbage : tasks which he has not performed/executed for a considerable period of time.

My love affair with Murphy's Laws are still going strong !

La Tô

La is for chocolat
Tô is for gâteau


Basically the gist of it is that Bb Ben repeats the last syllable of everything we say or in the case of Vietnamese the last word as Vietnamese is a monosyllabic language


Bonbons : lollies is what she can say clearly without any trouble at all...

Basically she like her sister and brothers or maybe it's a kiddie thing loves all things sweet and therefore her first words are associated with chocolate cake and lollies.

They do seem to take after my sweet tooth after all which spells disaster for their teeth !

Baby Taz's language evolution

Phrases that Baby Taz are throwing around :

Je vais tout dire à mummy
ça va tomber (repeatedly)
c'est quoi ça
Baby Taz khong muon can be translated to Baby Taz veut pas ça
Baby Taz khong thich can be translated to Baby Taz n'aimes pas ça
Ngay mai mummy mua nha' meaning Mummy will buy it (it being anything) tomorrow
C'est pas bon
C'est pas moi
Bo pété
C'est gagné (thanks Dora)
...

He is expanding his vocabulary and is speaking more sentences and phrases everyday.
He is becoming a precious little boy.
Apart from his temperamental 'crises' and non-stop repetitive and annoying obsessions he is an adorably cute boy. Love you baby Taz

Priceless

15 minutes getting dressed
10 minutes to arrive at destination
10 minutes of explanation by the daycare workers
10 minutes of peaceful playtime with Bb Ben


10 Swiss Francs spent on a first trial of leaving Bb Ben at the nursery by herself
5 minutes of intense ear-piercing wails from a non co-operative baby
Priceless is the realisation that said baby still needs and wants her mummy and is not in the least ready to be babysat by complete strangers as yet. I am needed and moreoever wanted and clung to and that sends me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

Though I still would like to claim my money back as 10 Francs for a trial period of 5 minutes is extortion !

Baby Ben still exclusively wants her mum to be her chief caretaker and nurturer for now.
Oh joy !

Lice outbreak !

The outbreak of poux parmi nous has struck again and this time noone was spared. We all went through the arduous process of parafin treatment which meant that we oiled our heads so that the lice will suffocate and die a painful death or so I hope after all the itchy and scratchy that went on here at the Lost in Switzerland household.

Lil Miss N is the portal into our auspicious family. She has time and again proven to be our lice carrier and invariably lice are not satisfied with one head they must propagate and find food and expand their population hence it is with much regret and lots of cussing that I go through the rigamorole (silly process and even sillier spelling) of ridding our family of such invasion and intrusion. It is disagreeable and I wish there was a vaccination against these damned pests/parasites !!!

Tele-obey

A conversation between Petit Suisse and I went something like this

Me : Petit Suisse please explain to me why you think that is that you are a renowned and model student at school with decorum and examplary behaviour according to your teacher and yet you display such abominable conduct and disobedience at home ?

Petit Suisse : J'ose pas de dire
which translates to 'I don't dare say it'

Me : Please tell me so I can begin to understand the workings of this strange phenomenon

Petit Suisse : Mais je n'ose pas de dire
visibly he is not too keen on disclosing the real reason which got me a bit upset and worried but I kept my cool and insisted some more

Me : C'mon you can tell me anything. All I am trying to do is to get an insight so that I could change if need be.

Petit Suisse : Television



According to Petit Suisse the reason as to why he is a well behaving, obedient model student with decorum at school and a not so angelic rugrat at home is due to the fact that there is no television at school.


Amen to that... The television is evil !!!

Whispers

Lil Miss N was surreptitiously excited as she beckoned me to lower my ear to her level so she could whisper a top secret into my ear.

It was pleasing beyond words to hear


...


'Je t'aime et c'est tout'

Je t'aime aussi ma petite princesse !!!


Yeah yeah I know I know I am falling into that parental trap of treating my daughters like precious princesses and my boys as valiant knights or little princes. Call me typical or whatever but I am not budging !


On another tangent she often tells me that

'T'es une jalouse'
which totally perplexes me to no end so I requested an explanation or enlightenment

She coolly interjected that 'You always have and wear all the beautiful dresses and adornments, in short you cover yourself in beautiful things and so you 'faire jalouse les autres dames'. Ah I see she means that I look so beautiful that I leave other women green with envy, she just didn't know how to phrase it. Coming from my own daughter it might seem biased and can be likened to 'the cat admiring the magnificent length of its tail' (Vietnamese idiom) but I will take it because as far as I am concerned kids do not lie.

Rambunctious one has struck again

I was furious as I was rudely awaken by his moaning as he was laying literally in a swampy bed (puddle) of pee and moaning nonetheless as it must have been bothering him.
How Baby Taz managed to entirely wet his half of the bed including but not limited to soaking the mattress, alèse, sleeping bag and his clothes and yet maintaining his nappy dry is beyond me !!!!!!!
That boy has the utmost talent for infuriating me... He was profusely apologetic as I was close to reaming him out *.



* ream out : (slang) to scold or reprimand severely

Happy 3rd birthday !

Happy third birthday to my rambunctious little rascal aka Baby Taz.
He was born on St Nicolas' day although he is anything but saintly.
He was doe-eyed and taken by complete surprise as he is not accustomed to the whole blowing out the candle process..
We only celebrated his birthday with a Pandoro and sparking grapejuice but no matter he was still awestruck as if he could not believe that the attention was focused and centred on him eventhough he had not done anything naughty up until that moment save the hour long kicking, screaming and wailing fest. He repeatedly said 'Bo biet lam' roughly translated to 'Daddy knows how to fix it!' in relation to a computer game at Ikea that wasn't working. He played that phrase for an hour without any hint of fatigue or exhaustion and only stopped when we went under the rain and he forgot completely because he was so absorbed by the leftover almost all melted snow on the ground.

Happy birthday little baby boy and here's to many more to come !

Snowed under !

The public transport system came under fire as it was paralysed by the rapid snowfall.

Pictures of the white blanket paralysing not only the public transport system but also left us prisoners of our own apartment.

I cannot wait to bid adieu to winter.

Incidentally

The plaque d'Induction has gone irretrievably flop and needs revision or major repair or in my humble opinion complete replacement.

We are going to have to look into 'faire marcher la garantie'.

It has served us for a good two years but alas its brevity could not be prolonged. Instead it has proved me right re its longevity and shown us who is boss.

I am still not convaincu par la plaque d'Induction and had some well-founded reservations and suspicions and upon inspection have further proof.

The Ceran short-circuited our electricity and left us without electricity for half a day.

It needs to prove itself to me. Hopefully its successor will do just that !

Long lives the Whirlpool Ceran stove ! RIP

We are now relying on our classical electric two-top stove until further notice...

Shrek struck again !

The lure of a dirt cheap breakfast of 1 Swiss Frank for a hearty feed consisting of one croissant, 1 roll, 1 portion of jam, 1 portion of butter, 1 serving of cheese and one pot of yoghurt topped off with an all you can drink: refillable cup of coffee/tea/hot chocolate proved too irresistible to some even. Henceforth it was no surprise that this morning sans douche or preparation we rushed off at Shrek's insistence and urging to IKEA for our fill of the grubby brekkies .

There were all the usual suspects and us being some of them. I noticed all the regulars...and some new faces. I made a comment about the fact that these people like us were all gourmand and all profiting from the generosity of Ikea which was just masked as an appel of a cheap meal. Shrek had not begun to eat and obviously had not drank his morning coffee yet because following my annoying remarks (because I can be annoying like that) he chucked a spastic* and went off... espousing to anyone within surrounding earshot that 'Yes indeed people who come to Ikea on a Saturday morning for the cheap brekkie are all gluttons, stingy and etc and etc and they are cheap asses but that was not his concern.' His voice grew louder and irritation intensely heightening his pitch. It was clear to all that he was not a happy chappy** and that I had dared to raise his ire.

Shrek is punctuated with what I call idiosyncratic and dictatorial tendencies.
Shrek does not digest stress or give off steam at work and as a result I sometime suffer as a consequence of his outbursts which are totally uncalled for... He does have this tendency to let out steam after my 'annoying remarks or habits' and claiming that 'my behaviour' induces him to break out the 'ogre temper' and 'hell hath no fury like that of an ogre's wrath' !!!!!!!

He did apologise afterwards after I made it clear that I wasn't going to be a doormat and continue taking that shit anymore !


Built up frustrations and pent up anger needs to escape through some sort of therapeutic sessions or perhaps Shrek should start a blog of his own because the way I see it my blog was borne out of my frustrations as a stay at home mum and now it's an outlet and vent for me which is a healthy way of getting my stress level under control...




* Aussie slang for going ballistic
** slang for a cheerful and content fellow