Parenting a toddler

is hard work … all who have parented toddlers, give yourselves a standing ovation!

Kate is growing at such an exponential rate and there are so many updates so I shall try to categorise them for you. Enjoy!

Bath-time / Changing Time
Whenever the tub of moisturizer emerges from the change basket, Kate would be all ready to dive her index finger in there and scoop out a huge dob of moisturizer. I used to have to struggle with her. On good days, she was pick some off my finger and moisturize my legs. On bad days, she would insist on sticking her finger in the tub and throwing a tantrum when I said NO. Well, I tried something new and it has been working so far. Just before I start lathering the moisturizer on her, I would ask her to get her hands ready by rubbing them together, and when I have placed some moisturizer on her, I will engage her help in lathering it all over.  She loves it and accepts it when its done and no more tantees. Whee.

I must be ready for you
Kate appreciates you telling her in advance what you will be doing. Eg) Let her know the sequence of event. Dinner, walk in the garden, remove shoes, take a bath. Mummy: “Kate, we are now going upstairs to bathe ok”
Kate: “Yes”
Result: no resistance. All go upstairs happily

A mistake I made yesterday evening. Kate was on her way up the stairs when she changed her mind and decided to head back down. I lost my patience and just scooped her up in my arms and carried her up the stairs. BIG MISTAKE. I spent the next hour struggling to bath and change her. She was upset with me, I was upset with her. No good.

Moral of the story: try as much as possible to let Kate know what you will be doing. (Eg) putting her on her booster seat, changing her diaper, etc. She likes to feel empowered and as much as possible, allow her to do it on her own. If she wants to wear her socks on her own, let her. She will eventually ask for your help after struggling with it for while. She loves it when she is able to remove her pants or her top without much help. Applaud her effort and encourage her. These are what I need to constantly remind myself especially on occasions when I just wanna jump in and do it all for her because we are running late.

Monkey See, Monkey Do
Kate was eating a banana and her mummy was happily looking at her eat until Kate decided to peel off the skin, hence dropping the banana on the ground and then proceeding to wipe her hands on the couch. Yuck! Yes, that was my reaction coupled with a high pitched “Aaargh” and stamping my feet in frustration. Ye Ye said ” You should not have done that. Wait she follow ah”. Yes, you guessed it, “Argh” ensued from Ms Kate’s lips shortly after. Aiyoh aiyoh

We adults unconsciously say “Aiyah” when we are picking up something heavy. Erm, Kate says “aiyah” occasionally when she is picking things up too. There is just something so funny about hearing “aiyah” from a little child. LOL

New Words
bibak = put it back
dog = doggie (does not say dog anymore)
milk = gnocchi (no more nilk)
daddy’s pillow
bida = spider

 

Maternal

Kate and I were resting after dinner and playing with Piglet. Just like how Mom used to play with me. Piglet waves, nods, shakes its head, kicks, etc. We moved on to me brushing Piglet’ s teeth, cleaning its tongue, washing its face, bathing it, changing its nappy, feeding it milk, etc. Kate got really excited and went to her change basket and pulled out a diaper asking me to change Piglet .. so cute .. then she pulled out some face washers and started imitating me in cleaning its teeth and wiping its face. Sooo motherly .. haha

Then, she decided to take my water bottle, pretending it is a milk bottle and started feeding Piglet. After that, she cradled it in her arms as if rocking it to sleep … finally, she decided to feed it the rest of her apple before she went upstairs for her bath.

My baby is growing up so quickly.

Chatty chatty chat chat

Ooh .. if only I could load a video on this blog … anyways … hope this little description can whet your appetite until you see Kate ..

This was after dinner and bath and Kate was sitting next to her Yeye. All of a sudden, I heard her babbling and then laughing out loud, together with her Yeye and Daddy. This happened several times and when I went closer she was actually babbling as though she was talking. Know what I mean? With actions and expressions and sentences except that you can’t understand what she is saying. It was non-stop .. and there were instances where she babbled so much she had to take a deep breath before continuing .. haha … so cute

Earlier on in the day, we had lunch with Yeye at Glen and stopped by to have a coffee at one of the cafes while waiting for Nainai (she had lunch with some friends nearby). Yeye had a long black, Mummy had a de-caf latte and Kate had a shortbread biscuit. After a while, Kate started getting restless so we decided to let her run around .. heaps of space near us. Yeye encouraged her to go and look at flowers at a flowerbar neraby and Kate wouldn’t go more than a couple of feet away before running back to us. Just wanted assurance that it was ok. Once, she got that assurance from me bringing her there, oh, there is no bringing her back. She explored that area and decided to help herself to the little ballons that were placed in buckets around the flower bar. Aiyah, had to keep away from them. We should have thought of that before encouraging her to run around .. haha .. anyways, managed to distract her with other shops … hee

Mummy decided to bring Kate along with her while she went to the post office. While on the way there, we bumped into Granduncle Paul and Grandaunt Julie, and they just bought a gift for Kate a couple of minutes ago. A cute lil giraffe named “Godwin”. She hugged it straightaway, made them so happy.

When back at home and in her room, Kate went towards this hanging number chart at the side of her cot and pointed to a picture of 2 giraffes and pointed at Godwin the giraffe and said “G-Rah” … so clever : )

4th October 2009

New words:

zai jian (Goodbye in Mandarin)
chao chao (smelly in dialect) –> usually says this when we are changing her after she has done a massive poo
yeah (nods her head in accompaniment)
yellow
trying to say ORANGE

learning how to sign I LOVE YOU (points to eye for I, hugs herself for LOVE, and just smiles at you for YOU)
some actions to the smidederinkidoo song
some actions to the ping pong, rollkatingting, sally sally lom jump pass game
loves teochew lullabyes .. mummy can only remember bits and pieces of one “ong ong ong, ong ging gong ….” Kate can say “long long yi” … LOL

starting to move her shoulders a lot more when she is dancing

still not too fond of some toys that make noises … she literally backs away from them. I tried putting her on a pony at ToysRus and when the pony started making little noises and moved, she wanted to get down. We’ve noticed that she tends to back away first when something unfamilier comes on (like a toy that speaks, or a water fountain that got turned on suddenly, carousels that speak rather than play soothing and child-like music). Once she has figured out what it is, and gotten reaffirmation from her caregivers that it is ok to check it out, she goes towards it cautiously and is fascinated by it. Intelligent right?

She is copying at an alarming rate. One day, Yeye noticed her spinning her pen like I do. I did not realise I do that until they pointed it out to me through Kate .. what a revelation .. haha. When we were at a friend’s place for dinner, she saw a 3 year old push a chair against the shelve to take something, she did it a couple of minutes later. Saw her daddy climb onto the table to adjust the clock, she climbed up the coffee table too. Thank you Yeye and Nainai for helping to keep an eye on her.

Kate’s got a very powerful voice for a little girl. Her grandparents took her to the carousel while Ken and I were finishing our drinks at the cafe. We could still hear her calling Daddy and Mummy several feet away … sooo cute. In the supermarket, I thought I heard Kate’s voice calling us and before I could turn around, there she was running towards us with her Yeye chasing her from behind. What an active little girl we have : P

It takes a lot of resolve not to go into her room to “rescue” her when she wakes up in the middle of the night. The other night, she started off by crying softly and then louder when no one went into her room. A couple of minutes later, she changed tactic. Started calling “Mummy Mummy Mummy”. I buried myself deeper into my covers to resist the urge to go and pick her up and start the whole routine of patting her to sleep for another hour again. Then she stopped and I thought to myself, whew .. finally gave up and fell asleep. Was I wrong. She started calling “Yeye Yeye Yeye” and then “Naiani Nainai Nainai”. I had my fingers and toes crossed that her grandparents will not go into her room to pick her up. Thank goodness they did not and she fell asleep after 15 minutes. Whew!!!!! Survival skills at such a young age .. amazing.

okies she is well and truly sleeping. Going to transfer her into the cot. Goodnight all

 

loves sitting on the carousel … thank you yeye and nainai …

If only I could capture this classic moment on film

Well, since I could not do it, I shall attempt to capture it in words : )

It has been a long morning for Kate and I. Woke up reasonably early, she spent some time with her grandparents before they headed to the gym. I did some housework and research on an upcoming trip. By noon, both of us were tired but you know who refuses to nap. So, I prepared a quick lunch and because I was tired and lazy, kinda just wanted to quickly feed her and get her to bed. So, instead of doing the usual routine of sitting on the high chair and giving her the bowl and utensils and let her feed herself, I decided to just get her to sit on the kitchen floor and feed her instead. Was it a good idea? Dunno ..

Kate insisted on wanting to hold the bowl so she could feed herself. So, I placed the bowl on the floor and she was happy to eat from the bowl for a little while. Then, she got bored and wanted to walk around with the bowl. Its not too much of a problem coz silly mummy cooked the porridge too long so it was quite gluggy and wun fall out. By the way, I decided to have a quick lunch myself so I was leaning against the refrigerator with my bowl of porridge. Our friend came and sat down next to me and ate from her bowl. So cute … mother and daughter sitting on the floor and eating porridge out of their bowl when there is a perfectly fine dining table with chairs a couple of feet away .. LOL

26th September

Last night during dinner, Kate made her Nainai so happy. First of all, she kept asking for more food (moreneh, moreneh she says). Then she said something that sounded like “more rice please” .. you should have seen the shocked looks on all our faces. She must have said that coz that’s what all of us heard : ) Then she surprised us further by saying “I love rice” a couple of seconds later .. hehe

She saw her Yeye scratching his back with a long scratcher a couple of days ago and today she opened up my utensils drawer and took out the long wooden spoon. And yes you guessed it, she started scratching her back with it .. LOL

On the way up to take her bath this afternoon, I said we are going to care group later and I thought I heard her say “Jordan” as if she knew we were going to his place. Hmmz .. am I hearing things or is she a real smart cookie!!!

She started snacking on cranberries at Jordan’s and I got her to offer some to him. And offer she did. Walked over to him and tilted her head with her arm stretched out offering the cranberry to him as though asking him if he would like some. He looked at it for a while before proceeding to eat it off her fingers with caution. Second time round, she didn’t even bother asking him, just stuffed it into his mouth as if she knows its good for him. Brought some laughter from the adults who were watching on .. hehe

Typical of toddlers, best friends one minute and pushing and shoving the next. Saw the 2 littlelies playing together at the corner of my eye and the next moment, saw Kate hitting Jordan. Caught a hold of her, had eye contact with her and told her sternly not to do it while accompanying that with a smack on her hand. She was not happy. Told her to apologise to Jordan by giving him a cuddle and she went over and kissed him on the shoulder instead. So totally unexpected … aiyoh this girl ah

17th September 2009

you are trying to say “ELEPHANT” – ambitious but good try … sounding like “Ayyi” at the moment but you’ll get there : )

We are sooo amazed at your recognition of drawings – either we are wonderful artists or you instinctly know what we are drawing because you have our genes … hehe. Mummy requested Daddy draw a picture of your carseat and he was halfway there when you walked towards us, not knowing that I had requested he draw it and just belted out the loudest “CHAIR”. You should have seen your daddy’s face, grinning from ear to ear and beaming so brightly that it lit up the entire street!!!!

Daddy loves your warm welcome when he gets home from work. You literally give him a hero’s welcome and makes it all worth while to come back home after a hard day’s work. Thank you Kate. You hear us at the door, peep through the blinds and when daddy walks in the door, you either run towards him to hug him, or excitedly shout “Daddeeeeeee” and wave to him .. ooh .. that is soooo wonderful : )

Sometimes you surprise with kisses on our cheeks, sometimes soft like butterfly kisses, other times a generous “muack”. Its usually a soft gentle kiss to wake us up when you are cuddling with us in bed on weekends. The “muacks” just comes on happy days .. whee … love you heaps our darling Kate!!!!!

You have said “mai” (no in dialect) a couple of times when you meant “No Thanks”. Hmmz .. perhaps you do understand the meaning of the dialect word “mai”. Correct intonation some more .. not bad ah?

you like the teochew lullaby “ong ong ong ong king kong” .. mummy is pretty good .. prolly got 80% of it right although she has no idea what she is saying for the last line .. she just made it up so it sounds like when laoma, popo and Godgrandma are singing it .. hope I am not teaching you some ridiculous words .. hahahahahahaha

the sentences are coming

Sunday: wake daddy up to go to church

Kate’s awake, mommy went to her room to pick her up, we head back to daddy and mommy’s room to wake daddy up. Daddy’s kinda awake and mommy said “Daddy, wake up, go pong pong (take a shower)”. Kate looked at my lips as I repeated myself several times. Then she said “Daddy”, “Pong Pong”, “Go”". Then when we least expect it, she said, “Daddy Go Pong Pong”. Wow wee …..

After dinner today, daddy gave Kate some watermelon. I said “Say Thank You” and she said “Thank You <pause> Daddy”….. Aww, you should have seen daddy’s face. He was beaming .. and sooooo happy that Kate said “Thank You Daddy” of her own accord instead of just “Thank You”

Some other updates not related to sentences

After dinner on Thursday, we decided to walk up and down the stretch of shops rather than just jumping into the car. Of course, lil Kate joined us ön foot”. She held Ye Ye’s hand and walked along with us. We were all loving it. Then, all of a sudden, she stopped to adjust the hood of her jacket, to cover her ears coz it was getting cold. So cute! After about 10 minutes of walking, she decided she was tired so she started dragging her feet and pointing towards the general direction of the car. Telling us via her body language that she was tired and someone should carry her to the car. LOL

must learn to share

Kate met her friend for fish ball kway teow soup at Knox City today and both their moms were invited along, mostly to chaffeur them there, pay for their lunch and hang out! So nice of our daughters to think of us.

All of us had a good time. P shared her prunes with Kate and Kate just kept asking for more, even though she was being fed yoghurt at the same time.

We decided to head over to ToysRus so the kids could run around and run around they did. Played in the soft toys section, played with balls .. oh and an incident with the balls. P found a football and Kate wanted it. So, she graciously shared it with her and I went and got her another one. Kate saw that and wanted the “new” ball and when P didn’t want to exchange, a tugging match ensued and Kate snatched it off her and made her cry. Oh no … imagine the embarrassment … ooh … thank goodness they became frens and played alongside soon enough after the incident.

Good idea to let the kiddos run around in ToysRus .. they love it .. and it tires them out for an arvo nap .. whee .. thanks for the tip Z!!!!

So caring .. my baby

I stubbed my 2nd toe while taking the vacuum cleaner out of the laundry room yesterday and boy was it painful. It started bleeding under the skin and so I bent over to soothe it and was kinda wincing from the pain. Kate was playing nearby and when she heard me, stopped what she was doing and came over to cuddle me. When I explained to her what had happened, she “sayang-ed” my toe. Awww … so sweet and caring … my baby. Her daddy’s trait .. hee