I love this photo. It took a while to arrange everyone to fit into the frame nicely. It’s a self taken shot, so the size is limited by the length of my arm. :p
宝贝’s knowing sideways smile. 小小宝贝’s clueless look. To me, it’s a gem of a photo.
That one moment, captured in eternity.
I love my short get-together time before bed with 宝贝. She’ll lie on her bed and recount her activities in the day to me.
宝贝: Mama, it’s your birthday today but papa didn’t buy you flowers. (With a very serious frown)
Me : *sigh*
宝贝: (she sat up on bed and patted my head gently) Never mind, never mind. Tomorrow I’ll draw many flowers for you. Ok? (Big eyed empathetic look)
Me : That’s real sweet of you!
宝贝 : But I don’t know how to draw flowers!! (Thinking hard, brows furrowed) Fish ok?? I know how to draw fish!
Me : (*bo he hair ma Ho! in this case, it’s bo huay, he ma Ho!) Erm fish?
宝贝 : (sensing my hesitation) I’ll draw many many fishes!! And a pond! And a duck!! Ok ok?!
Me : ok! (How can I reject her sincere offer?!) <3 <3
*bo he hair ma Ho = hokkien dialect. Literal translation : no fish, prawn works as well.
It’s my birthday today. Well, it still is, for another 30 minutes.
It just dawned upon me… (I know some of you are going for the comments button on various witty remarks on my age. Shuddup!) that when I made my wishes, I started off with my family first, then ending with myself. (Erm… How many wishes did I make? Loads of course!! It’s a once a year thingy!!)
I used to make many wishes, only for self centered little me. Now I make wishes for my loved ones.
It’s crept up upon me. I’m now… A Parent.
“She doesn’t know how to take the bus.”
“You must be kidding!! Isn’t she in Sec 2 this year?! I went around on buses when I was in Primary 5!!”
“Well, she’s always been ferried around by her mother…”
Oh my goodness…
Overprotective parents. Are we helping or harming our children?? Sure, these youngsters are academically brilliant but completely inept in handling normal day to day stuff.
I even see it in 宝贝. She’s been ferried around so much that taking mrt and bus are treats. I recall that it was the other way round for me. Buses (mrts were only operational very much later) were the norms. Car rides were the treats!!
When I gossiped with my friends about these “lucky” kids, it made me more mindful that I need to stop mollycoddling my children. Sometimes, for the sake of convenience, we “help” them with their tasks. Are we really helping or over helping??
We sometimes underestimate the abilities of our children. They are in fact, very capable of performing many tasks. We, parents, should have confidence in them and let them do it.
宝贝 was able to feed herself at a very young age. Of course, we went through lots of cleaning up and soiled clothes before we reached that stage. It was so tempting to just take over the spoon and shovel the food into her mouth so that I could save myself the task of cleaning up the entire mess!! I shudder at seeing grown up children (even the ones in primary schools) being fed by their parents and maids at the restaurants or even at family functions. Ok, I’d rather go for the mess at home during training than to be caught dead with an academically brilliant imbecile who still requires feeding at an advanced age.
Sure, she wants me to help her with everything, if she has the choice. It’s the easy way out. i usually let her choose – either she does it herself or everything remains status quo. No coercion or begging. Her choice.
Definitely, if the tasks are dangerous to perform at her age, I’d definitely take over. Her grandmas and some friends of mine think I’m too brave. Their idea of “safe” differs from mine at times. :p
There’s no better time than now to let go and let them learn. In fact, I have to constantly remind myself to let go for I can’t take care of her forever.
At the age of 3.5, she can do the following things (which I think all children of her age should be able to do) :
– Use the toilet on her own with the help of the handy ikea stool. That stool is worth every single cent and a hundred times more!!
– Dress herself.
– Prepare her own breakfast. Simple one of course.
– Feed herself.
– Pack her schoolbag.
– Walk home after she alights from her school bus
– Set the table (cutlery and plates) for the whole family at mealtimes.
– Bring her own dirty plate and cutlery back to the kitchen.
– Return her toys and books back to their original places after use.
– Do her own laundry. (Just putting them into the laundry basket and then into the washing machine, turn on the washing machine at the right setting).
– Use the phone, dial the correct numbers and “buy” groceries, (She places her grocery orders with my Dad. Haha.) or simply chit chat. She remembers a few people’s numbers for this purpose.
– Send whatsapp messages with single words.
Quite a long list! Next one on the list – bathe herself adequately.
Of course she gets treats when she does her chores. I just have to take the risk of cleaning up the mess if she fouls up. But hey! It’s for the long term benefit. Think of the amount of time and money you can save when she can help out with the household chores??
Meanwhile… Here’s my little housemaid in her Hello Kitty apron. That’s extra incentive. She likes to look good when she’s performing household chores. :p
People of Singapore – One Face at a Time.
How apt. I stumbled upon this blog when it was cross linked to one of my news tweets.
It’s a blog chronicling the lives of the people who are living in Singapore, from all walks of life.
Ignore all the happiness reports, boring people reports, wealth reports and other trashy reports out there that people like to quote, especially on the social media. This is the real Singapore. These are the people in flesh, forging their lives in Singapore. Real living people define Singapore, not absurd statistical figures from skewed reports that people take as gospel truth.
Ignore even the xenophobic, whiny, social media posts of the minority who make such a racquet that they are assumed to be the majority. (Empty vessels make the most noise. Sorry. Can’t resist taking a jibe at them. Losers!!)
This is the real Singapore, with a face and a heart.
People of Singapore – One Face at a Time.
Photo at the courtesy of The People of Singapore website.
Sunday is a day of leisure, to be spent with the family.
He’s blessed with absurdly long eyelashes for a boy. Will they thicken and curl like his sister’s??
Made myself some fried crabsticks snack before they expire… Not the healthiest thing on earth but at least I air fried it without oil. So it’s a jiffy healthier. (I like to console myself with that.)
The air fryer is really the most idiot proof appliance around. You won’t burn the house down, you probably just end up with charred food. And with no oil involved!
Well, it’s a breeze to make this. I didn’t use up the whole packet of crabsticks because 小小宝贝 was wailing halfway through my food making. The only chore is to peel the plastic off the crabsticks and to “unravel” them.
I used 160°C and fried them for 15 mins. I turned up the heat to 180°C for the last 5 mins. Every 5 mins you have to stir them and separate them from sticking to the tray and to one another. I didn’t manage to do that as I was changing diapers, so the top few were a little chow dar. And some underneath were still whitish and not very crispy.
But overall, still yummy!!
“Eh! You are very 偏心 (show favoritism) leh! You flooded your Facebook with photos of no. 1 but we hardly see any photo of no. 2!!”
Huh?! Really? I checked my Facebook. She really had many more baby photos but then again he’s only 3 months old. However, it’s true that I’ve fewer photos of him in my phone. I used to snap her in every compromising position and laugh over it.
Maybe the novelty of snapping baby photos has worn off? Because we have been through it once and we kind of know or even expect it when he does certain things at the “right” age.
The bigger reason is probably because we used to have only 1 baby. Now we have a young child and a baby. The child demands attention from us and so does the baby. There’s simply no luxury of time for us to hold up the camera and patiently coax the baby into the positions that we want him to be in. Not with a little child hopping around us, demanding for her needs to be fulfilled.
At the same time, 宝贝 wants me and me alone to help her with her activities when she was previously contented to have her grandparents help her with it. She’s sensed that her attention from me has effectively been halved with the arrival of the baby and wants it back.
Do I love her more or the baby less? Love is something that can’t be quantified. Hah! This drives the statisticians mad. I love both of them. I love to cuddle with Ms chubby and the baby. Sometimes 3 of us just cuddle together.
But yes, I’ve only 24 hours a day. Time has to be shared. There’s no other way out of this. And while she is lucky enough to be first born, she had an extra 3 years’ worth of 100% love and attention from us. I refuse to agree that 小小宝贝 has been short changed, for now he has the attention and love from everyone plus his doting sister. She’s extremely gentle with him.
She showers him with love and kisses every day. She even holds conversations with him on her daily activities with him “oohing” and “aahing” in his baby talk. I’ve been trying to capture it on video but she clams up when she sees me sneak up with my phone. Sigh… I need to pick up some stealth skills for this paparazzi work.
Both my 宝贝s captured in a shot. *V*
Mugshot – Cutest baby in jail.
I just can’t resist posting this. This was what I found on my WordPress stats page. Someone used the following search terms and was directed to my candy crush post.
BEWARE! Candy Crush is EVIL!
Lol!!!