Kirst Afloat: February 2007

Today is Lunar New Year's Eve. Tomorrow will be the first day of the Year of the Fire Pig (which doesn't happen very often---it's the year of the pig (not fire pig) once every 12 years). The Hong Kong people have been very busy the last few days with final preparations. Everything (homes, businesses, etc) has to be cleaned by tonight. And tonight is traditionally the night when families get together for a large dinner with lots of special dishes.

James and I went to the Lunar New Year Flower Market at Victoria Park the other day. We didn't even go down the aisles with flowers. We just went by the many, many stalls of toys and decorations. We bought two neat foam lizards that you "walk" with a long wire handles and two huge fabric flower pinwheels (of sorts). Claire went earlier in the week with her class and bought a bouquet of (Valentine's) flowers for herself. It's the first time I've been and it was very interesting. It would have been a lot better if I hadn't been carrying a large heavy Ikea bag with two down duvets in it. (Cathy and her two roommates arrive on Friday night---we need more bedding!)

We're off later tonight to Bangkok. We're staying in a suite at the Peninsula which is just fantastic. The kids are looking forward to swimming. We'll also be able to do some good shopping in Bangkok.

Need to go pack. I'll try to post a photo of the kids in Chinese garb but the Blogger program will probably crash (yet again)...haven't been able to post any photos since changing to the new Blogger. AAAGHHH!!!

The vomit fairy paid several visits to our boat last week. A classmate of Claire's threw up in the classroom on Monday. (Thank god Claire was in Chinese class at the time or she would have most likely followed suit.) I don't think the classroom was probably cleaned after that event as at least 8 children (out of 22) from the class have become ill. Claire exploded all over James' cabin on Wednesday night. It was nasty and I was barely able to deal with it. James slept through the entire event and I was able to transfer him to our bed. Claire was repeatedly sick in the middle of the night but was okay (but fragile) the next day.

On Friday, Claire had a nasty red rash on her face and her limbs. She was extremely itchy so I took her (James tagged along) to Dr. Kennelly. Turns out she had Fifth Disease (aka "Slapped Cheek" in the UK or more specifically Parvo Virus B19).

The vomit fairy returned on Friday afternoon when James fell ill. Poor thing...every time before he threw up James would say, "Mom, please make me feel better." He was great, though, and even managed to make it to the toilet to throw up by the end...a first for him. James fell asleep early and was totally recovered the next morning.

Claire seemed healthier over the weekend. I cancelled her piano lesson, though. She went to Sunday school and we later participated in the "IMS Amazing Race" at Hong Kong Park. It was a fundraiser for Claire and James' school. In retrospect, this was not a good plan. Claire became overtired and started running a fever that evening. She still wasn't quite right on Monday. By the evening, her eyes were getting gucky. I ended up taking both kids to Matilda (the hospital where Claire was born) on Monday night (got to love Hong Kong---you can always get a doctor's appointment if you use the private system vs. the public one). Claire had her first case of conjunctivitis (poor thing) and was very good about the eye drops.

She finally went back to school today after missing 5 days. James missed 3 although he wasn't actually sick on any of those days. I wonder if he would have become sicker, though, if he hadn't had as much sleep as he's had. He's still a bit tired, though---he wanted to come with me to pick up Claire today and he promptly fell asleep.

One disturbing bit is that Claire has been coughing a lot in her sleep tonight. I did get her to drink some water and it's seemed to help. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that she's NOT coming down with something else. Hong Kong is an extremely germ-filled place at the moment. So many people are SICK, SICK, SICK!