“Lemme be your baby just a while longer,
Let me be your rainbow at the end of a shower,
Just a little cuddle,
Just another snuggle…
How I hope our lives will always be intertwined together.”
Inspired by the Tula blanket I got customised by a nice work-at-home mum in Malaysia.
Do support mummies who are juggling having a second career and taking care of their children.
Oh… we woke up on a bad note this morning.
Little Foot didn’t wanna wake,
she’d much rather sleep in instead.
We roused her from her morning slumber,
“Oh mummy, what a bummer!”
Yet as we sat in solitude strapped up in the car,
Our little lady held my hands as she gazed afar.
I looked at our fingers curled around each other’s,
I think, “yes this is what it means to be a mother”.
I wanna hold your hands, it read,
This feeling, it melts my heart,
I know I would forever and ever reciprocate.
Little Foot is expanding her vocabulary very fast these days and getting better at trying to pronounce words which I would tell her whenever she asks me “Ah Kis?” (What’s this).
Her new vocabulary of the day – “foon”.
Actual word – “phone”.
Afternoon when she woke up from nap, she was extra sticky to me. She hadn’t seen me since Friday morning as I was caught up with working late Friday night and then left early Saturday morning for a work event.
She wanted to watch YouTube while she lazed awhile more, so I indulged her as we chilled around the mattress beside the bed watching her favourite Muffins Song clip.
Then the app hung on the Samsung Tablet… I passed it to Papa who was on the bed to fix.
“E’s foon! E’s foon!”…. referring to herself. And her face started to screw up into a epic sad face and tears welled up.
So I said “ok ok… use mummy’s phone”. And she said lightened up and said “mummy’s foon… mummy’s foon…” but still wanted the Tab back. So I said ok ” trade with Papa. You take papa’s phone” (buying us time while YouTube was updating).
“Papa’s foon….Papa’s foon!”
It’s so cute the way she pronounces the word. I try to say it the right way to her although I’m also tempted to call it a foon now. Lolz
Oh baby, you really are growing up so fast! Now you even identify things that are yours and stake your claim on them!
Picture this.
I’m walking in a mall with my Little Foot who’s loudly declaring “Walk! Walk!”.
I hold her hand and she screams and giggles in glee, dragging me headlong into the crowds. Quite cute. She finds a shop with things that attract her interest. She lets go of my hand, giggles and cheekily starts posing around, tentatively walks backwards, checking my reaction. I laugh.
(My inner self: “Die lah… I shouldn’t have laughed…)
And so she thinks its acceptable, and she continues her funny antics. I can feel Papa Long judging me for laughing. Thankfully, she hasn’t quite gotten so bold as to dash away without me, and she’s not quite as mobile as to run on her own, unless she’s running towards me into my arms. But still… I was telling her, is ok to drag your mummy through the crowds, while the rest of the world can’t quite see this 83cm todd.
The nightmare then starts when I said “let’s go!”.
“NO!” She’s still not yet done with the Tsum Tsyum feature wall in Bossini.
(My inner self: uh-oh…..)
And so I found myself carrying the kicking, wriggling loudly protesting toddler out of the shop. She broke free and wanted to go back. Then decided to throw herself flat on the floor in protest….
“No!!!! Ahhhhhhh!”
Yup, Terrible Two alright.
We let her lie down there as she started to kick up a fuss, and said “Come along now”… She ignored us. “Bye Bye!” we walked a slight distance away…to the horror of some passersby. She screamed and cried louder.
After a moment, I walked back, picked her up, and said “Let’s go”… and then try to distract her with something else. A food offer usually works… or comfort latch (ok, some people rolling eyes now I know).
The crying stops.
There is no repeat of this scenario (to date).
***********************
As we inch closer to the Terrific (some say Terrible) Two mark, there are some things that we felt we needed to do for Little Foot.
Helping her understand that there are real dangers out there. I let her into the store to explore, but within boundaries. There are racks and furniture with sharp corners. we point it out to her. There was a socket she tried to put her finger into. We almost freaked out and raised our voices. She also has to understand that Mummy and Daddy are not going to be able to find her everytime and there are bad guys out there. So I try to enforce the hand-holding and no running.
Letting her understand what is acceptable behaviour without stifling her curiosity. It is cute to giggle and scream in glee and dash through the crowd when you are a 2-year-old with a coconut hairstyle. Try doing that at 10 years old. Chances are some deranged short-tempered person would come up and scold you, worse, slap you. The world is not so forgiving. Sure, who doesn’t want to explore the mall? All the lights, all the displays, all the new things that triggers her senses… so many things to see, to touch. Exploring is good, but it has to be within a safe and acceptable situation.
So that day at Suntec, I let her lie down on the floor and make a scene. Everyone who knows me knows it’s very hard for me to walk away from her, but I really tried to harden my heart and do it, while watching her through the side of my eyes, and Papa Long standing nearby. She had to learn that it wasn’t something that was funny. At home if she does that, Papa would pretend to be stepping on her, showing her what it could be, if she did that in public – People will walk past and step the crap outta you. She had to understand that the world will not notice us short folks, and more importantly, kicking up a fuss does not mean she will get her way. Simply put, the world doesn’t owe you a thing.
At 21 months, she’s also trying to grasp her feelings. There will be some crazy evenings when everything is just wrong…. playing with a toy and then she suddenly slams it in frustration (My inner self: Simi daiji?!). She can’t quite tell me why, so those are trying days too, but we still set the limit. If she’s going to get angry and throw herself on the floor, my best offer is to help her lie down there by lowering her slowly so she doesn’t knock her head to bits. And then I leave her there. After awhile, I ask her a question, to signal if she wants to call a truce and then we move on to find something else to do.
Seems to work.
Little Foot has always been, as what we say in dialect, a “Mangzang” (loosely translated to irritable) baby.
We’ve taken awhile, but we’ve sort of gotten the hang of handling her tantrums.
Thankfully, most days, she’s a polite and cheery toddler… and she’s got a thing for music and children’s songs, so those are useful in keeping her happy. YouTube is a lifesaver too (cues anti-YouTube policing mamas!)
Our parenting styles are not perfect, and I make mistakes like sending her wrong signals by laughing at something she shouldn’t be doing. As first-time parents, we also apply some trial and error, and often we just let loose and say “ok, let’s cave in to he demands for that chocolate muffin” or close and eye when she decides to drag a plastic bag on the floor as she walks, so sometimes she gets confused by me too.
At times, I remind myself that she’s a kid, and kids are entitled to having fun, and I am human. Some days, I too am exhausted and feel like saying “OK lah, you wanna roll on the floor, roll lah!”.
We are all humans after all.
P.S: If you see us letting our kid roll around kicking and screaming in public, don’t judge us. We aren’t doing nothing. We are doing what we need to do, to teach a life lesson on the spot. So bear with us!
This morning I was walking in my office building and suddenly felt like there was this odd feeling on my sole… thinking to myself “what in the world got into my shoe??”
When I took off my shoes I saw this sticker (from the Frozen Sticker book that Little Foot received from a classmate’s birthday goodie bag) there on my sole.
There I stood in the canteen. Staring at my sole.
I wanted to LOL at the sight of the sticker there.
One day years later, I want to look back at all these seemingly mundane yet hilarious situations and feel a warm fuzzy feeling in my heart.
A baby leaves all sorts of footprints in our lives… and they have all these innocent ways of invading our thoughts, making us think of them and miss them. They have a way of making us pause in our path and smile. Smile at an action, a memory, even a sticker.
I’m looking forward to more of these little surprises… just hope the next one won’t be something messy like tomato sauce!
On Monday, just before the school’s National Day celebration started, Little Foot’s teacher asked me whether she has interaction with other children at home. I said yes and we had a chat about why this question popped up. Turned out that our Little Foot doesn’t really mix around with the other toddlers in class. Notwithstanding that she spends most of the morning part crying, whenever she has calmed down, she would stay on the sidelines and observe the others, refusing to participate.
I described her usual playtime routines with the kids in the neighbourhood to the teacher, so we both felt, that perhaps she’s still adjusting to the environment, let’s give her a little bit of time.
Still it bothered me a little inside…
That morning, she did however put up a semblance of participation in the Playgroup performance item, waving a flag and marching, albeit while insisting on being in physical contact with Papa.
Papa Long and I chatted about it in the car on the way home one evening. Should we be concerned? It’s normal right? Eventually we brushed it off and reminded ourselves that Little Foot has always been an observer, even at a very young age. AND Papa is also by nature the same way – not a social butterfly, preferring to be a wallflower.
I also mentally reminded myself about the article I read about the different forms of play that children engage in as they grow older – from solitary play to parallel play to group play. She’s not fully at the group play stage yet, preferring to swing between the three different stages, depending on her mood
(Actually don’t we all have the same kind of day too? When we just want to be left alone with our coffee and book?)
Over the public holiday, I continued to observe how she interacted with the cousins. She’d play, walking around with Baby K, passing toys, grabbing toys…randomly approaching the older cousins, but when all the kids started jumping on the bed, racing around, Little Foot would recede to the sidelines again. I get the sense that she’s watching, observing, probably many things are probably running though her head, but she’s not in there jumping.
Brought to mind the Chinese idiom “按宾不动 ” — observe first, don’t deploy the soldiers yet until you get your strategy out.
Then this morning, I saw photos posted by our helper, Little Foot playing with older kids at the playground yesterday afternoon.
It made me so happy to see her playing with other kids. Felt like I needed to knock my own head for getting overly worried over a harmless remark by the teacher.That’s a first-time parent for you alright!
And so, on a happier note, it’s Friday! Don’t sweat the small stuff!
Today, Little Foot must have woken up on the right side of the bed. The little lady was in an exceptional mood… lots of smiles, and a lot less tantrums than on a normal day ( mind you, we are already in Terrible Two stage!)
Usually Sundays, she would manage to make me throw away her home cooked lunch and get to snack on the adults’ meals, but today she had a wildly fun time getting pasta sauce all over her face!
Strawberry milk and cornflakes for a snack 🙂
Everything tastes better when you dip in your ten little fingers!
And the happy mood continued to our cafe lunch session at Valley Point… she was super happy to go see the dogs waiting to be groomed at Pet Lovers’ Centre in the building.
More happy moments at a playground in Bukit Panjang. Today we visited two playgrounds in the zone!
And finally, playing with toys at her grandparents’ place.
Glad you had a good day today my Little Foot… may we have more such happy days ahead!
On such days, everything feels right. It’s really a nice kind of feeling!
it’s been almost 2 weeks since Little Foot fell ill.
So one day, I woke up and found myself with a crabby feverish toddler, who was already very clingy since she started school, and starting to display terrible two behaviour.
Not fun for sure.
We battled 9 days of fever bouts, somewhat like a roller coaster… with three visits to the PD. There were the days when Papa couldn’t be there (and couldn’t handover the car), so we took cab. PD finally found out from the blood tests that it was mycoplasma infection (it sounds more horrible than it really is).
Saying I was worried & emotionally exhausted felt like the understatement of the year.
Poor Little Foot had to endure all the medicine sessions, had to be disappointed when we say no, she can’t go out to play with the next door korkor and meimei. She had no appetite, rejected her milk bottles. She just wanted to keep directly latching (God knows how much milk I have left in me!).
Heart wrenching.
And then there were all her tantrums, brought on by the discomfort from the bug. On three occasions, I lost my cool and shouted at her.
And then there were the “test my boundary” antics. She got a smacking on the calf from me for purposely pouring the green tea bottle contents all over the floor.
Exasperation.
AND she was super clingy to me. I took leave to bring her to the doctor, ran home when the fever persisted. Every moment I was in the same space physically, she wanted to make sure I was in line of sight and preferred to plaster herself to me, or act like a baby koala.
As I described to my friends, her love really overwhelmed me.
There were moments in the last 2 weeks that I wished I could return to life before baby (I hear some exclamations of “Nooo…no good mamas ever say that! ” but Harlow, I am human). The banging outside the toilet door with her calling put “MAMEEE…. MAMEEE….!!!” would jolt me back to reality.
Thankfully, there were also pockets of funny, cute or heartmelting moments from her which would smack any wish for my old life back out of my head.
“Just a little while more…” I told myself as I gave her all my time, attention, energy and love… “Just a little while more…”
Just give her a little while more, because one day, she won’t want or need me like this anymore. Then, I will miss my little no. 1 fan. Then, I wouldn’t regret that I didn’t hold her just a while longer and a hug her a tad tighter.
Grateful.
The fever finally went away since Saturday, and she’s on the road to recovery.
This week, Little Foot went back to school. After such a long break, we had to start the adjustment all over again…. yet again, she is clinging madly to me, and would randomly cry for no reason. Emo!
Let’s hope things get better…. while my heart and my sanity is being tested day after day.
On the bright side, finally the medicine worked on her. And maybe I can finally get some rest. (One can always dream.)
P.s. as I looked through my photo gallery, I realised that we did manage to get some very nice activities done during the moments when the fever was at bay. I’m glad we tried to keep her happy and entertained meaningfully.
Cat hunt moments
Haircut session @ Turf City
Playtime @home
New rides
It really takes a lot of courage and conviction to be a parent, and I am still being trained and tested everyday.
Parenthood really is a lifetime project filled with flying spanners and fireworks.
With the benefit of hindsight, it is a good thing that we took a long long time deliberating whether that parenthood would be our kind of gig, so we can’t really say we jumped in blindly. Everytime I feel like I am running on empty, I remind myself that we agreed to hold hands and take this leap of faith together, and that come what may, we will always try to be the best that we can be for our child.
Little Foot has been having high fever the last 2 nights. Thankfully, the fever has gone away somewhat so she was able to resume her routine of going downstairs. We were mindful not to go near the other kids though, as the bug is still hanging around us.
Enthusiastic about bringing the new Skate Scooter out for the first time!
Enthusiastic about bringing the new Skate Scooter out for the first time!
Bubbles are her fave! Now she’s advanced to being behind the gun (she insists!)
Papa was home in time for a “cat hunt” session with Little Foot, even though it wasn’t Sunday.
Here’s a marmalade coloured stray cat. So pretty!
Another playground she likes
Our outgoing Little Foot, didn’t wanna stay home after her bath! So we walked around the corridor for awhile before bedtime.
Get well soon baby, all the above pics sure beats that situation at the PD yesterday when you kept dozing off from the high fever. Inside, Mummy was panicking!
I’m glad you are such an outdoorsy girl…. and also glad Papa has taught you well when it comes to loving animals.
No photos today.
Day 5 of school; Day 3 of leaving her with the teachers.
Dropping Little Foot off is becoming more tricky, obviously the baby knew what was coming — Mummy was going to pass her to someone and walk out. She insisted on carrying her backpack (bear bear!) and her toy dog (Ah-Ah!) around the class, refused to lose bodily contact with me. In a last ditch attempt to reject this arrangement, she packed her items, held my hand and walked to the shoe cubbyhole, took out her shoes sat down and attempted to wear them.
A clear signal to Mummy to “lets get outta here”.
Heartbroken to see her in this state. I stayed with her as we waited for familiar faces to arrive (Gong 老师 has taken ill, and the other two teachers were not in so early). By 9am, it was clear I was going to have to really move off. So I did. Poor Little Foot cried big tears. Seriously distressed.
As I crossed the road and walked up the hill to my office, I reflected on her old weekday routine:
Breaking her free spirit, breaking this old routine is heart-wrenching for me.
My 19-month-old doesn’t quite understand why there needs to be this change, and she certainly didn’t see anything wrong with the old routine, where she made all the little decisions – what clothes to wear, what shoes to wear, which toys she will pick from the boxes and cupboards, when it is a good time to have some biscuits or bread… which room she will explore in the house.
My 10 minute walk ended.
I needed to shake the sinking feeling that was creeping into my soul, lift up my chin and console myself that it will get better, she will like her new friends and new routine soon, and hey, it’s only 3 hours more to go before I go pick her up again during my lunch time.
Back to work, back to emails. Little Foot’s sad face still imprinted in my memory. Juxtaposed with the funny situation last night when she decided to climb out of bed to go on a night adventure to the playground – she’d chose a dress, packed her little bag, wore her shoes, opened the gate and walked out.
Sad. Surreal. 无奈.
Mummy feels like a broken person.
alittlefootprint 