All About Growing Up

We finally got down to some serious toilet training of Elaina. Our efforts have been futile though. Not only did she not improve, she has even unlearnt the skill of telling us she needs to poop. Not quite sure if our attempts at trying to get her to sit on the toilet bowl is turning her off big time that she decided to stay away from it completely. Initially, Elaina threw tantrums and refused to get on the potty. Recently, she relented and was fine with getting on but in less than a minute she will attempt to get off but disappointingly without any output. From time to time she may even want to stand and pee like her big brother.

The cute underwear are not doing its magic like how it did to Matty. Explaining to Elaina that she is now a big girl backfired on us big time, because she will turn around and tell us (in her own words) "I don't want big girl... I want be baby". In a situation like this, I started to appreciate the male ego that Matty has in him. Being recognised as a big boy was a big deal to him and it was easy carrot for us to dangle in front of him whenever we needed him to do certain things. There must be some psychological barrier within that we need to help Elaina overcome rather than the lack of control due to her age simply because there had been days when she woke up with a dry diaper. By far, being toilet-trained is the hardest milestone to hit, unlike crawling, standing, walking that will happen naturally even without us parents doing too much.

On the other hand, Matty is not giving any chances where growing up into a big man is concerned. Just yesterday morning he told Daddy that he cannot hear a thing whilst Daddy was telling him to get out of bed and get ready for school. I bet that he is starting to acquire the "non-listening" skill that all men seemed to have!

Wedding Bells Are Ringing

Since the day my brother told me that he needed Elaina and Matty to be his flower-girl and page-boy at his upcoming wedding, I have been happily going around doing my research for a decent dress for Elaina the last 2 days. Thank goodness boys have hardly any other selections to consider.

I am toying with the idea of actually buying online and having it shipped here. Firstly, there is a wider range of dresses from the US that we can choose from. Secondly, including the shipping charges, it will still work out cheaper by half of what I will need to pay if I buy a similar quality one from here. Lastly, those that we can get off the rack and still affordable are usually way too poofy and of a less comfortable material. I will still have a few weeks to ponder over this issue, and hopefully there will be more dresses on discount by then since I was told that the Americans don't usually hold weddings when the weather gets too cold. So if they need to hold weddings before the Autumn ends, the peak buying season for them is probably around this time.

My biggest fear for now is still whether Elaina can hold up her behaviour while walking down the isle with the wedding couple. Couple of fearful thoughts have popped up so far. She might cry when she is faced with so many strangers, she will throw a tantrum when she finishes throwing the flower petals (assuming that is what the couple have planned), she and Matty may start a fight there and then over some unsettled issues, or she might decide to pop her thumb into her mouth and suck all the way walking into the ballroom. The guests are likely to find it amusing but I am not too sure if the couple will. I don't want to start the relationship on a wrong footing for sure.

Baby is 4

Matty gets frustrated these days whenever I call him "baby". Usually he will try and correct me by reminding me that he is not a baby but a big boy. It is so tough to get rid of a nickname that I have been using on him for so long, but I think I should try and change now that he is 4 years old.

Like last year, Matty had a grand total of 3 cakes for his birthday - 1 for this classmates, 1 from my parents and another cake with the paternal grandparents. Since last weekend, we have been overloaded with cakes and I still have 2 boxes sitting in the fridge right now. Soon you will see cakes coming out from my ears.

As usual, presents from immediate family members will come pouring in not just for the birthday boy but for the little one as well. It was a good thing that I had bought a Hello Kitty mug for Elaina using my 10 dollars Sanrio voucher just the day before (because I wasn't sure if she will feel left out.) She actually asked for her present this morning. Thank goodness I was well prepared. It's not that she was being demanding or anything, but she thought that it was her birthday and this was despite our many attempts explaining to her that it was actually Matty's birthday.

Had a couple of hiccups while trying to get the cake to Matty's school this morning. The traffic was extremely heavy around Marine Parade and Fort Road area. Cars will changing route from ECP to Nicoll Highway. We didn't manage to work out what was the cause of the jam along ECP that lasted for 3 hours since 8 in the morning. Because of the diverted traffic, it took us close to 30 minutes to get from Parkway to Matty's school. I was panicking like hell in the car thinking of all the kids waiting for the cake to arrive.

Matty has been talking about his birthday for the last 2 months and he was clearly looking forward to this day. The cake cutting and birthday song singing remained as the highlights for this year yet again and will probably stay that way for a while. Kids are usually contented with little little things like these, adults are the ones who make them deviate from it. I will put off having a big birthday bash as long as I deem appropriate.

The one thing special that I did for Matty this year was that I had sent his photo in for the Playhouse Disney Birthday Book. He always had this look of envy whenever the segment comes on and has even learned to sing the whole jingle by heart. I thought it will be a fantastic surprise for him and he will be very pleased to see his own photo on air for the whole month.

Happy Birthday to my Big Boy!

The Patchwork Post

The days are floating past really fast and the fact that there hasn't been any entry here is not a very good sign. It is an indication that I have been living my life mindlessly with not much opportunity to take stock of what's happening.

This post made up of little snippets is a very lame attempt to redeem myself a little of the guilt from not jotting down Matty and Elaina's growth in the past couple of weeks.

Matty started to attend clay lesson early this month. Not trying to make him more artistic but since it is only a 2-minute walk from Mah Mah's house, it is a good place to park him for an hour or so every Friday afternoon. Keeps him occupied and gives other at home a break.

We will be talking to Matty's teacher later this week on his progress. From the report, he seemed to have taken a keen interest in arts and music but gross motor skills are still very much lagging behind his peers. I blame it on his lazy parents for not introducing enough outdoor activities to him! But one thing for sure is that his language skills are definitely improving. He is more wiling to converse in Mandarin lately. Plus, he still entertains us from time to time with his quirky reply.

Elaina continues to do "better" in being a terrible-two stager - a diva is in the making and I am not exactly excited about it quite frankly. She dishes out her tantrum like nobody's business and to think we thought that Matty was a tough nut. At least if we have the patience, we are still able to talk Matty out of certain demands. Absolutely no chance with Elaina. If she wants it, she needs to have it. Distraction, persuasion, negotiation and even threats are of no use. We have used the stick, the carrot and even both together... still it leaves us helpless most of the time. Not only is Elaina a diva, she is a drama-mama. She knows when to work up her tears to gain a few sympathy points. But there are times when the tears are as genuine as gold. Tears will start welling up when she sees someone feeling sad or if she hears a melancholic song. What an emo-queen!

Failing to Fail

This is an extremely overdue post and I have been wanting to put this down in writing since a few weeks ago because it is one topic that I hope Matty and Elaina will learn in due course. This will serve as a reminder to me in years to come.

The interest in this rather morbid subject sparked firstly because of a handful of young elitists committing suicide in a short span of 2 weeks just recently and over issues which truly in my view are not serious enough that one need to end his life for. Secondly, a friend of mine was telling me how her 8 year old son (who is above average in terms of his academic result) was taking it very badly about not doing well in one of his subject and had this huge worry that he won't be able to maintain the third position in his class this year again.

It sounds a little odd to say this, but I think one of the important lessons to be learnt amongst the many others is about failure. A child can be equipped with the highest IQ and EQ, attend reputable schools with the best schooling system, enrolled in enrichment classes from phonics to arts to music but once he or she lacks the life-skill of keeping afloat when caught in a less palatable situation (which almost always will happen in life just a matter of when!), he or she may react in an extremely negative manner.

Like all parents, I hope that my children will do well in school and generally in life but I want them to also know how best to deal with hiccups that will come along the way, how to pick themselves up and move on, be creative when it comes to formulating ways in getting themselves out of a rut and not resort to taking their own lives (touch wood!). What best way other than learning from experience?

They should have sufficient successes in their early life to help build their confidence but every now and then it ought to be dotted with little little failures to make them understand that life can never run as smoothly as they want it to be and things don't always turned out as planned or hoped for. Better to have failures come in tiny packages than in one big blow later in life.

There should be occasions when they emerge the winner to appreciate that they have the potential to be the best and hard work pays off, but there should also be times when they don't in order for them to understand that they cannot be the best in everything and there is someone out there who will beat them to it... and that it is ok as long as they know they have tried.

They need to know that they are right in what they do so as to boost their morale and lift their spirits but they cannot be right all the time and when things go wrong, they should not go around pointing fingers and pining the entire fault on others. Look within oneself and decide how to deal with ugly situations.

Failing to fail is extremely detrimental in a child's growth. So.. no, I don't want my children to live a charmed life and cruise along. They need to trip and fall so that they can learn to avoid the bigger pot-holes when they walk further down the road.

Phonics

Matty has shown a huge interest in phonics in the last couple of months and I have to say that he is pretty good at it. He is able to identify the first letter of every word almost without fail simply by listening to the pronounciation.

Yesterday I was stumped when he told me that "W" starts with "D". Took me a while to realise what he was driving at and when I did, I didn't know how to correct him because he wasn't entirely wrong either. If you think about it... "W" (pronounced as "double U") indeed starts with a "D".

Elaina is 2!

Elaina finally turned 2 on 18 March. Whenever Elaina or Matty celebrates their birthday, I always tell myself that I have survived another year of parenthood and the celebration is not just for them but me as well.

As usual there was no big birthday bash... we had lunch at Sushi Tei and followed by a birthday cake that evening. The cake is always more than enough to make the birthday girl or boy jump in joy. That was pretty much about it for Elaina's birthday. We had wanted to bring Elaina on the Ducktour but only to realise that the boat leaves on the hour and each ride takes about an hour. We would have problem getting to Matty's school to pick him up on time.

One of the major milestone that I hope Elaina will hit is to get her completely toilet-trained for the daytime. Now that the work in this area is done for Matty it is just about time to get Elaina started.

Someone got into trouble....

17 March 2009 - Matty pushed one of his classmate in school and the boy fell from the stairs.  Good thing the boy was ok... probably fell down from just a step or two.

The teacher wasn't too sure what exactly happened but she heard Matty shouting at the boy that he doesn't want to be-friend the latter.  Next thing she knew... the boy got pushed off the stairs.

Needless to say Matty got himself into hot soup and was reprimanded in school and at home.  He is still serving his sentence of "no computer and tv games" that had been imposed by Papa until this Sunday.

Perhaps the redeeming part of this whole episode is his show of remorse (it was clearly written on his face that he had done something wrong and was feeling very bad even when he got home from school) that and his admittance that he was the one responsible for allowing what had happened to happen.  

Emotions

We took the kids out to Vivo (what's new?) last Sunday and ended up in McDonalds because Marche had a queue forming even though it was only slightly after 6.

Elaina has always been a big fan of french fries (aren't we all?) but she couldn't even swallow her fries when it was served. Reason? There was a toddler boy around her age, seated diagonally across us being given a tongue-lashing by his folks. Elaina was so affected by that scene and started to tear. I got her to look away but it only worked for a while. By the time she got to her 2nd fries, she turned around once more and her tears started to roll again. That's Elaina for you. She has so much empathy for a person in tears. She even cried once when she heard a sad song. Not that she understood the words but I suppose the melody rubbed off her.

I grew up as a crybaby and got my mum frustrated often because I cry over nothing and everything. My brother used to make jokes out of it even until today and of course that got me crying even more back then. Thank goodness I grew out of that. It is cute to have overflowing emotions when you are 3 but not a pretty sight at 30. And perhaps it is because I learned to appreciate that no amount of crying will help at the end of the day, I want Elaina to be tougher even as a girl and not an "emo queen". It is ok to cry but definitely not ok to cry just about anything. Tears are fine but too much of it makes the person look at the world in a blurry state.

On the other hand, Matty displayed his lack of emotions in a recent episode. He "lost" his first best friend because her mum decided to put her in another school. Although Matty did tell us that he misses Jodie when he didn't see her consecutively for a few days, his life in school went about just like any other day. I probed him further this morning for fear that he might be taking it negatively but much to my surprise he has now named another boy in his class as his best friend. He told me that he misses Jodie but he isn't sad at all (with a grin on his face) and he knows that it is because she has now gone to a new school. It has become a drill that if he stop seeing a familiar face in class it is because that person has gone to a new school. Talk about bouncing back! I just wasn't expecting him to move on so quickly and accept changes so easily. This is way too much "toughness" for me to accept from a boy this young.

Am I starting to sound ironic in this post?

Change the Batteries

Couple of days ago, one of the DVD player at Mah-Mah's place went kaput. I can't help but suspect that the players' lifespan got shorten because of Elaina's half-baked knowledge on how to operate it.

While everyone was frantically trying to find out the reason why the player kept ejecting on its own, Matty came along and decided to throw in his 2-cents worth. He insisted that we should just change the batteries disregarding our explanation that not everything worked on batteries. Actually he said the same thing to me not too long ago when I was meddling with something that had failed to work. Obviously he had thought that way because whenever his toys are not working, the only reason is because the batteries have gone flat and a change of batteries will always do the trick.

Kids - they are so adorable because they think so simply and are always brimming with innocence.

Superstar Virgo

We went on our second family vacation on 13 February. This time it was a short weekend getaway on a cruise.

It was definitely not as disastrous as the last time except that Elaina is getting lazy these days and refuse to walk, demanding to be carried no matter how hard we try and encourage her to get off the "tree". She had put on quite a bit of weight lately and even though she was only in tee and overall it was so much heavier compared to 6 months ago when I had to lug a baby who was all wrapped up in warm clothing.

The food wasn't as fantastic as I remembered it to be but we managed to get quite a bit of sleep while on the ship - at least Matty willingly took an afternoon nap on Saturday afternoon without even being asked to. The excitement of sleeping in the cabin probably enticed him to do it.

I would say that the overall experience wasn't too bad. Wonder whether I will have the guts (or insanity) to bring Elaina to Japan next Spring.

Orange Juice

A question that popped up in one episode of Blue's Clues - where do orange juice come from?

Matty's reply - from the fridge.

I almost fell off my chair.

Our First Baking Venture

Matty and Mummy attempted our first baking venture today. This wasn't made from scratch in case you are wondering... we got ourselves a box of pre-mix the other day. Purpose was really to keep Matty occupied for one afternoon while Elaina takes her usual afternoon nap. The muffins (although it looked more like cupcakes!) turned out pretty well... I wasn't expecting it to be so moist for a pre-mixed cake =p

Riding High on Energy!

Busy as we may be, Mummy is proud to say that we managed to accomplish a fair bit even before we see an end to January.

We finally brought Matty and Elaina to Sentosa last evening to catch "Songs of the Sea" as promised moons ago. Lights, dancing fountain (as how we described to Matty), spitting fireballs and a minor display of fireworks towards the end, all for only 8 bucks. Not too bad a deal and a fantastic way to keep the children entertained even though it lasted a mere 20 minutes. And since we were there, we took the opportunity to bring Matty and Elaina on the cable car... another promise that was made moons ago.

The weekend before, the kids had their first go at kite-flying at the Marina Barrage. Whoopee~

I started a blog to document recipes gathered.... and of the collection, half of which would have been tested on. Guess it didn't take 20 years to get my butts moving on this one as expected. The truth is that I was forced to act on it because the OpenOffice wasn't quite as ideal as I had hope and I encountered some nagging problems when managing the document file which was created using Words. Updating the document with new recipes became a chore! I was left with no choice and had to quickly find a solution that will allow me to access the recipes whether it is from the office, using the PC or the MacBook. And so I accidentally got to check-the-box on this task. Recipes are slowly being uploaded and hopefully while I am at it I will attempt to try each and every one of the recipes just so that I can take some tantalising pictures to upload to the blog.

Over the course of 2 weekends, Mummy also managed to clean the wardrobes, pack the clothes that Matty and Elaina can no longer fit and threw out some stuff that are useless except for collecting dust. I should try and take a day off work sometime in the 2nd quarter and do a round of major cleaning to the wardrobe. I bet that underneath each drawer there is a very thick coat of dust. The only thing which I would very much want to get done before the Chinese New Year but did not get round to was to take the curtains down for dry-cleaning. It was too late to get an appointment by the time I called as the dry-cleaner was fully booked. This will have to wait until the 1st weekend after Chinese New Year.

Next... we need to get more photo paper and black ink to replenish the printer because I seriously need to fill up those photo frames before I invite people over. Do you think I will get to it before end-January?

The Accidental Milestone

8 January 2009 marks the day Matty swears off wearing diaper both day and night.

It took Matty more than a year to be toilet-trained for the daytime and hence came as a complete surprise that we didn't need to anything for him to be toilet-trained for the night. I was even contemplating toilet-training him for the night until he is much older to allow everyone a bit of space to breathe before another round of agony begins.

The day when he was fully trained for the day came as an instinct for Matty to stop peeing into his diaper during the night as well. We just didn't have the guts to put him in underwear in case he should wet his bed and so continued to make him wear his diaper to bed each night for the last 1 over month. The diaper stayed dry every morning.

The comfort he had during the day of not having something that bulky around his butt must be the reason that left him extremely frustrated the last couple of nights when he had to wear his diaper to bed. And so last night we decided to take his diaper off completely.

Hurray for Matty!!

2008 ~ 2009

Before I am able to digest 2008 fully, it has made its way into the history book and with Year 2009 making a grand entrance like the fireworks at Marina Barrage (which we missed even though it is just right opposite our apartment!).

I am sure that alot has happened in Year 2008 but most of it never got blogged about - blame it on the days that swooshed by even before Mummy could bat my eyelids. I think the most significant events in Year 2008 would be Matty starting at a new school and us moving back to Waterplace. Workwise, it was a year not worthy to be mentioned as I cannot think of any major accomplishments to boot about. I cracked my brains while doing my year-end appraisal and still ended up writing that blatant truth in my review.

As much as I would like to take things a little slower for Year 2009, I am not betting my life on it. The first 2 weeks of Year 2009 is enough to serve as a sneak preview. The days transit into the next without us realising, like the cans of cranberry sauce being removed from the supermarket shelves and being replaced with cans of soup stock for steamboat, Christmas crackers gone from display and mahjong sets taking its place. Not trying to be humourous here but it is the truth because Chinese New Year is tipping so close that retailers need to react quickly. Like the supermarket, everyone at home is quickly adapting to changes. Matty just started Nursery this year and is in the morning class. Elaina goes off to her playgroup twice every Tuesday and Thursday. New year, new routine.

Hopefully in the next 12 months after this post, Mummy will have more things to note down and not just another year that had slipped through the fingers.

Bad. Bite.

When a child displays a certain characteristic, It is either due to their genes or they learn by example. We are baffled recently by Elaina's reaction to agitation through biting!! It is not her nails we are talking about, rather her target is only and always Matty.

We have come to terms that Elaina is a temperamental and stubborn girl, it seems to run in the family but not sure where she got the violent streak in her. We have witnessed a few times in the last couple of weeks Elaina trying to take a chomp off Matty when they get into a disagreement. Good thing she hasn't quite succeeded in her attempts if not hell would have broken loose by now.

So far, we have not heard of anyone in the immediate family doing something this unthinkable, ruling out the possibility of it running in the blood. Neither can I recall any instance of someone another person during an argument (well... at least not literally), so Elaina couldn't have learnt from example as well. It this a self-defence instinct or plain naughtiness?

I can just about picture my girl being branded the big bully in school in the not so far future and the numerous times we will be summoned to see the school principal for her bad behaviour.

Power of Blogging

I have been cutting myself some slack these days at work (slacking if you prefer to call it) whenever I find the chance to or if I try hard enough to justify the need to slow down. Work has been overwhelming on most days so there is more reason to get a grip of myself before I lose my sanity. And besides that, since I hardly get a chance to surf the net at home now that I am a mummy of 2, the best opportunity to do so is unfortunately during the 5 to 10 mins break I award myself throughout a typical working day.

Yes... Mummy has been doing what I call blog-hopping - going around reading blogs of people I know and those whom are complete strangers to me. This is not new to alot of netizens just that I never got caught on with it. The habit only really started because I was doing alot of googling for new and interesting recipes to try out. The more I blog-hop the more ashamed I am of mine... I think I just don't put in enough effort to write.

Since I am into cooking these days most of the blogs that I have bookmarked are of people who share the same interest and can be bothered to do a proper write-up of recipes, take pretty pictures and post them for everybody to enjoy. They are an inspiration! Though I am not sure when I will ever get my butts moving and move out of the "being inspired stage" and do something similar here. Let's target that to happen 20 years later.

Other than cooking tips and recipes, blog-hopping has let me keep up with what is happening in friends' life even without having to actually talk to them. Hmmm... that should really be a bad thing isn't it? Then there is another cluster of people that I only know by name writing about their struggles in life from pursuing an MBA to fighting a battle with cancer.

It is amazing how much you can learn from the experience of others just by blog-hopping... and of course an avenue for me to shift my focus when the tough gets going at work (excuses, excuses, excuses!!).

I Think We Are There (Almost!)

It has been a week since Matty has gone "diaper-less" during the day.

He has had a few accidents in the last 1 week thanks to the fact that he still refuses to say when he needs to go most of the time. We need to drag him to the toilet religiously (and has been doing so for the last 15 months)... but that is not enough because only he knows best when his bladder is going to burst.

By denying him his diapers completely may eventually drive home the message that he has to tell someone when he needs the loo. Hopefully it won't be long before Mummy blogs about Matty having zero accidents and completely toilet-trained.

34, Eczema, Playschool and Birthday Cake

Papa turned 34 yesterday and we took the day off work to spend time with Matty and Elaina (well actually more like to run errands!).

We had to take Matty to the skin doctor yesterday morning after the "outbreak" appearing on parts of his body just doesn't seem to go away completely. The doctor confirmed that he is having eczema (again!) and promptly prescribed him with some cream and a bottle of syrup with apparently stops itches. No intention to give him the syrup unless the itch becomes really bad or if we want to knock him out - the bottle has a bright red label across it saying that it causes drowsiness *evil grin*.

We even enrolled Elaina with a playgroup which starts 6 January 09. Seeing how she enjoys dancing, singing and mingling with other little people she should have a good time in the playgroup... just a matter of how fast she can get adapted to the environment and being left alone. The good thing is that due to age, for the first term she needs to be accompanied. When she turns 2 in March 09, she will proceed on to level 2 which do not require a guardian to be around. Hopefully the first 2 months can help break her in gently.

Surprisingly.... this time round I seem to be less concerned about sending a little being off to school at such a young age. I used to battle with myself (and of course the rest of the family) when we had to send Matty to a playgroup at 18 months old. It felt so cruel to "abandon" a baby to a bunch of strangers.

Strangely... I have had a few people telling me that she is too young for school. And those who didn't think it was a great idea before (for instance my own parents) feeling otherwise now.

Technically... I won't even term it as going to school. More like socialising, having a place to hang around for a couple of hours per week and getting entertained.

Elaina finally understood the meaning of birthdays... or rather the whole candle-blowing and cake-cutting business. For the first time she attempted to blow off the candle after the birthday song ended. It was really cute to see her huffing and puffing with all the might she could gather.