June 28, 2011

Hallucination/ Night Terror Part 1

I wanted to blog about this two weeks back, but I was too busy to even log into blogger.com. *Arghhhh*

Chloe has the tendency to wake up every night crying, and ask for cuddling from Mama or Papa. It started since she was a little baby. She used to wake up in the night and started crying for nothing. Papa and Mama both had to be 100% awake and worked our brains hard on how to calm down our little baby when she was crying. We are so used to her bad night habits, and Mama didn't really observe in details of what causes all these dramas in the night. 

Two weeks ago, Chloe woke up in the night crying again. As usual, Mama or Papa will go to her and cuddle her and let her know that we love her and here to "sayang" her. After the cuddling, she stayed awake. Usually, she would just go back to her dreamland. But this time, even with the cuddling and reassurance of our TLC to her, she did not stop crying. We switched on the light, and tried to check out if there any mosquito or bug bite which possibly making her uncomfortable. We checked on her body temperature, no fever. We checked every parts of her body, trying to figure out what was making her uncomfortable, but not marks of injury or marks of mosquitoes/bugs bites. Then, Mama applied some "Chinese rubbing oil" onto her tummy, thinking that it could be her bloated tummy which causes all these trauma. 

Still, it did not stop her from crying.. Argghhh... Mama's temper has started to raise, thinking that Chloe was trying to throw tantrum. But I know I shouldn't yell or make frighten her especially in the night. I usually play the "GOOD" Mama in the night, I use soft tone and calmer voice to speak to her in the night. The funny part is, when I think we should apply soft strategy, the very very "LOVING" Papa started to scream at her and threaten her that if she doesn't stop crying immediately, he will send her out of the room. *sigh* Ya...Funny Man. During the day, When she was playing tantrum a lot, this "LOVING" Papa would give in to her 100%. Geezzz.... I think Papa is more difficult to deal with  compared to Chloe. 

Anyway, We had decided to bring her out for a 5 - 10 minutes TV session in order to calm her down. Immediately, she stopped crying and starred at the 613 Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Channel. I didn't want her to take the chance to ask for TV every nights. So, I specifically told her that she has to go back to sleep after 5 minutes. The moment that I saw Chloe's relax facial expression, Mama told Chloe, "Hey, Darling Chloe, It's time to Oi Oi (sleep) so Mama is going to Switch off the TV and Chloe, Papa and Mama all go back to the room to sleep. Is that ok?" Chloe nodded and replied, "Yes!" So, Three of us marched into the room to join Baby Clarisse who was sound asleep. 

The very moment that we all lied down side by side, Chloe started screaming again. We quickly switched on the light again and checked her out. She gasped in horror, "Mama, Dirty. Mama, Dirty". I scanned through our quilts, pillows, bolsters, bean bags and everywhere else; and everything was clean. I double-checked on her bed, it was dry too. She didn't wet her bed. 

Mama asked, "Chloe, do you want to go shh shh (pee)?" I instantly thought that she might want to poo or pee, and I thought that was how Chloe associated them with the word "DIRTY".

She didn't answer, and her eye balls were rolling left to right, right to left. Mama didn't wait for her to answer; straight away picked her up and brought her to the toilet. The moment I seated her on her potty, she screamed even louder and refused to stand on the floor. She kept on saying "Dirty, Dirty. Mama, Dirty!"I didn't pick her up immediately, I reassured her that the floor is clean.

"Darling, Look, Look. It is not Dirty." Mama told Chloe. Mama also took the sprayer to wet the floor to emphasize to Chloe that the floor is absolutely clean. Regardless of what Mama said to Chloe, it didn't seem to stop her from her crying.

Somehow, her crying this time brought to my attention that she was terrified of "something". I began to recall the activity of the day. Unfortunately, Mama was too agitated with the continuous crying which demonstrated her fear of "something". I noticed her eye balls rolling from one corner to another, and she pointed at the corner and said "Mama, Mama. Dirty!"

Mama was getting even more nervous but in order not to instill more fear into my baby, I reacted calmly. *sigh, I need to complain again*. While Mama was trying to think of the logical way to analyze what is going on with my daughter, a very "superstitious" father came into the picture and started to analyze it the superstitious way. Papa also began to look left and right, asking Mama to where is the Buddha sheet which supposed to be slotted in Chloe's pillowcase. *ARGH, ANGRY!*

I believe in Spirit, but NOT in this case!!! I quickly gave Papa an eye signal and quietly told Papa " Hey, don't you try to introduce these spirit spirit things to my daughter."(I actually used the word "GUAI and SHANG" (Ghost & God). Papa was very co-operative. Immediately, he acted calmly and tagged along with Mama's logical strategy.



Once again, when we moved into the room, Chloe cried heartily and pointed a corner and yelled, "Dirty, Dirty. Mama. Po Po (Carry), Mama." She clung to me tightly, and I could feel everything was genuine and she was definitely not pretending. It was so so real that she looked very startled and she was trembling a little when I hold her tight.

I don't know how to tell how heart broken I was to see my baby horrified and I was clueless on how to help her out. All Papa and Mama did that night, was hold her tight, scratched her back (her favorite night time ritual which Mama tried to quit). We sang her favorite song, we hugged her, we pat her back. We did everything to comfort her.

After 3 hours, she finally got tired and felt asleep in Papa's chest.....

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