King on King-Size Bed

Since moving back in with Mah-Mah, Matty has picked up the bad habit of climbing onto our king-size bed in the middle of the night. We forsee alot of hard work in trying to get Matty accustomed to sleeping in his own room when we move out again. As for Elaina, Mummy bears half the blame... because we know that she will eventually go back to sleep as long as she can "smell" me somewhere near here, I would always carry her out from her cot and put her next to me so that I can go back to sleep promptly while she gets her "aromatherapy" session. It has become a habit for Elaina as a result. There were nights when the bed became too squeezy with all of us on it... of course the 2 babies didn't seem to mind.

Last night, Matty threw a fit when he woke up in the middle of the night realising that he was back in his own bed. For the fear that his tantrums would wake Elaina up and make the situation even more uncontrollable, we had to let the "king" have the bed. Not for long I promise! Hopefully when we move back home, he will not find it as convenient as now to crawl into our bed, since it definitely will require more effort on his part.

For now, Daddy takes it as a fair exchange. The "king" gets his king-size bed and thrown-out-of-bed Daddy gets to sleep on the more comfortable mattress which I don't understand why Matty would readily give up for.

Slacking and Lacking

As I was browsing through the blog last night and reading some of the old blog entries, it confirmed my recollection that Matty actually started to talk (as in like say a few words) when he was about 9 months old. In fact he was able to mouth a few words even earlier than that... at about 8.5 months old. To name a few, he was able to express words like "mum-mum", "up", "down", "go", "on", "off", "clock", "bird", "car" and "flower"... and it wasn't random sounds that he was making. He points to the item and says it clearly.

I was proud that the boy was steadily increasing his vocabulary back then. I have always attributed Matty's strong verbal skills to the amount of talking that we constantly do with him. It wasn't intentional... it was never in our agenda to "groom" him in this aspect. Maybe because he doesn't really sleep a lot back then and we ended up distracting him and entertaining him with constant chattering. We carried him and walked him around the house, the garden, the neighbourhood and gave him all the exposure that a child needs - the sight, the sound, the smell.

Flip side of knowing that Matty was doing well in this area is that now I feel we haven't done enough for Elaina and the guilt of neglecting her seems to have crept back quietly. At 10 months old today, Elaina has not been able to mouth any recognisable word... probably just "mum-mum" when she sees food, which we are not even sure if she is pronouncing the word itself or just random baby sounds made. The excuse of "time is so stretched" is often cited to get ourselves off the hook when we cannot get something done for someone. To say that I have failed as a parent may sound a little too strong, but I hate to think that I may not be doing enough for the girl. I have always tried not to compare Elaina with Matty and stay away from being uptight about a lot of things.... but with that, I seemed to have slacked in making the effort when it comes to Elaina.

Probably in a few months time or in a few years when Elaina has learned what she needs to know and able to do what she needs to do... the guilt will stop haunting me. Until then...

New School

Matty has finally gone back to school after a 2-month break... except of course he is now in his new school. So far the one good thing that came out from it was that our fear of him rejecting school did not materialise. He insisted that he wanted to go back to his "old school" when we first brought him there to check the school out. That added on to our fear.... the fear that Matty needed Mah-Mah to stick with him in school for almost a month before he is convinced that school is a pleasant place, that he can face school all by himself and that he will still come home in one piece at the end of the day.

Even though we were told by the school that one parent can remain in the classroom with the kiddo for the first 3 days, the teacher - Ms Simmone persuaded us to just drop and go. Otherwise it will be very hard for her to bond with the child if the parent continues to hoover around. And so we did…. after spending 15 mins with Matty and basically showing him around the classroom just to interest him with the crayons, toys and books, Mummy left him there and only keeping close watch through the observation room. Circle time, snack time, playground, singing, free-play filled the 3 hours. He did well – not a single drop of tear! Of course, we weren’t too sure on the first day if it was because the reality hasn’t sank in yet and the tears will start to pour on the subsequent days to follow. We even pre-empted Ms Simmone of that possibility before she gets overly impressed with his “steadiness” on the first day of school.

Then came the second day. Unexpectedly, Matty’s enthusiasm for school started to show. Right after lunch, he insisted that he wants to leave for school even though it was still way too early before the class starts at 2 in the afternoon. He puts on his shoes and waited at the door for Daddy to send him there. So he ended up waiting for the class to begin in the deserted school… because it was only 1.30 and all the teachers were still out for lunch.

It has been almost a week and Matty seems to be enjoying his new school. Guess our worry was an unfounded one. Glad to be proven wrong in this instance. If not it will be another stressful month for everyone.

First Blog for the New Year

Couldn't bear the thought that the blog hasn't been updated at all since we crossed over to 2008. Just gonna write something for the sake of it. Let's see...

Matty and Elaina caught the flu bug from Mummy a week ago and are on their way to full recovery. Other than the 2nd night which was really bad and resulted in Mummy only getting 3.5 hours of sleep that day.... I think we were pretty lucky to say that the babies were not as cranky as what we thought will be. Maybe we should thank Dr Chan for the "magic green potion" which can even knock Matty flat out.

Elaina is starting to get very demanding these days. She throws her tantrum more often and over minor things at times. We can hardly strap her to the car-seat lately. She will cry as though something devastating had happened. Elaina is definitely more daring as compared to her brother. She had been letting go of her grip without much thinking and can actually stand unsupported quite well. Everybody is betting on her walking real soon. I guess we will find out eventually.

For Mummy... it has been alot of money spending despite the end of Christmas. Now we need to start buying clothes and shoes for the Chinese New Year. I can't help but feel that my pocket is burning a big big hole... and will only get bigger when we start getting the red packets out.

I think that's about it. Time to knock out. Nitezzzzz