Timid Grace

I didn't know Grace can be so timid.

Yesterday, like every other Wednesday, I went over to my parents' place. Grace, as usual enjoy the time there, until around 3pm when my dad came home. Why? Cause he didn't came back alone! My aunt (my dad's sister) came home with him. Now, Grace seldom see this grand aunt (I think yesterday was only the 2nd time). Grace has never show such fear to anyone before. She has been very friendly to many of our friends and relatives.

I don't know what's with this aunt of mine that Grace fear so much. Grace dare not even look at her. After which Grace became very very sticky (yeah...like glue) to me and asked me to go into our room. All of us tried to calm her, but in vain.

Later in the afternoon, I took Grace to the kitchen and made her ribena. She took her ribena and walked towards the living room. I let her walk by herself and I proceed to sit in one of the sofa. To my surprised, Grace stopped at the door separating both rooms. Stood there, turn her back towards living room, and continue drinking her drink, peeking at intervals. After finishing half of her drink, she put her cup on the dining table but dare not walk over to me. She stood behind the door, peeking at us. After a while, she cried out loud! Oh dear, she's still afraid of my aunt.

In the evening, I talked to her, hoping to calm her and let her accept her grand aunt. Initially she refused, but later on during dinner, she started to accept her grand aunt. She even cheers with her. Making a progress.

Moody Grace

On Sunday, we were back a little late from church as there's this quiz going on. As we fear that Grace will be too tired if we join others for lunch, we decided to "tar pao" economy rice and eat at home.

But to our surprised, though getting up quite early in the morning, Grace seems recharged when we reached home. So we all sat together and have our lunch. Grace even finished a bottle of Vitagen. After lunch, we told Grace to go into the room and have a nap, but Grace has other agenda on mind. She wanted "书" (book). Hubby persuaded her to take her nap and promised her that we will take her to the playground at Youth Park later in the evening. She finally sets in and have her "nen nen" of course. A few minutes is all it takes for her to doze of to dreamland! She was indeed very tired.

Upon waking up from her nap, we quickly get her changed and sets off to Youth Park. But, somehow Grace thought that we were going to take her fishing. When we reached Youth Park, she doesn't seems to be excited. In fact, she was moody. She rejected most of the playground rides, and only slit down the slide once and a few seconds on the swing. After which she demanded us to take her for a walk. I could see that she's not feeling happy. Must be feeling disappointed.

After walking for a while, we went to the big field where groups of youngsters are playing football, caption ball, etc. Grace wanted ball, but we had forgotten to bring ours. No choice but to borrow from others. She played a while then demanded "nen nen". What choice do I have? When to the car and hubby took us for a car ride. (we could not leave the place yet as we are waiting for mother in law whom had went hiking). After the ride, Grace seems to heal from her moody-ness. She told us that she wanted to go to the playground. And this time she doesn't want to leave. She must have realised that if she continues to be moody, she will also loose the chance of having fun.

I am surprised that a child this young could show us her moods. Have to give her a big lecture.

Argh....potty training

It's been a while since I started potty training on Grace. For her big business, I had in fact started to train her (for about a year now) to get used to "do it" in the morning before her morning bath. She refused at first, but now she had more or less get used to the routine.

As for her wee wee, I had only started the real potty training in the past 2 to 3 months. I had always let Grace on nappy (with a plastic pant) rather than diaper whenever we are at home. But this little girl don't really mind if her nappy is wet. She will go on and on with her play. So around 3 months ago, I started to remove the plastic pant, which means that there will be possibility of her making a puddle on the floor. However, I found that the method is not really good in training her to use the potty. After a month and a half, she's still a puddle maker.

Well, it's time for next step. I had always monitor the frequency and the interval of her wee wee. So with this information on hand, I started to drag her to the potty and demand that she wee wee on specific timing. Being Grace, she off course, refused at first. She will scream and yell every time I asked her to sit on the potty. But eventually she started to understand the purpose.

Even so, she's really a stubborn girl. Sometime, she will sit there with no "output". So I told her nicely, "Let mee ah know if you want to wee wee, ok?". She will node her head. Moments later, puddle on the floor! Even worse, there are occasions where she wee wee a few minutes after I asked her if she wanna wee wee and her answer was no! Imagining me cleaning puddle after puddle every day! Really stressed me out!

Recently, Grace had learnt even more. I notice that, though she had not learnt to tell me whenever she wants to "pooh pooh", she will make some kind of a funny sound to signal to me that it's nearly time. So whenever I asked her, she will node her head. Now, that's some progress.

Whereas on her wee wee part, though she will always say no whenever I ask her if she wanna wee wee. But she will try to wee wee whenever I drag her to the potty. She will say "有" (means, got) if there's output. Some progress too!

I could see that there's still a long way to go, but at least now I don't have to clean up puddle on the floor so often.

Born negotiator or cheater?

I have this norm of going over to my parent's house every week on Wednesday. I will be there for almost the whole day (normally till after dinner) so that Grace could spend some quality time with her grandparents. So, every Wednesday morning I will get Grace ready, take our breakfast and off we go. She will normally be very excited. Why? Cause she had somehow linked fishing to “公公，婆婆，阿姨”(means grandpa, grandma and aunt). She will always say "gong gong, po po, yi, then 鱼". I will need to explain to her that we will not go fishing on every trip. But still she will say "gong gong, po po, yi, 鱼".

Anyway, today's post is not about fishing. It's something that Grace did on last Wednesday that make me slap my forehead.

As usual, on Wednesday (the one that just past), Grace get ready eagerly, anticipating to go over to her grands place. (She normally don't like to hang around the house after she had change into "kai kai" (means outing or go out) clothes. So when I asked her to take her breakfast of bread and milk, she was kinda reluctant. But I told her she will need to finish her breakfast, else no kai kai for her. I also mentioned that both "ma ma" and "po po" want her to finish her food. No choice, she hastily finish her bread and drink her milk. But this time she never finish her milk. I told her to, saying that no going over to "po po"'s place if she did not finish. She refused. I told her the same story again. She refused. I told her the same story again. It went on for a while and she still refused to finish it.

Then she started to shift the tension. She told me to pour the remaining milk into her sip cup. Then I asked whether she's going to finish it in the car. She says yes. Ok with me as long as she drinks her milk. So I pour it into the other cup and let her hold on to it.

Once in the car, I asked her to drink her milk. She shake her head. Half way through, I demand her to drink but was rejected. Gosh...I'm cheated by my 2 year old daughter! How shameful.....

Never underestimate a child

Yesterday night Grace was playing with her set of toys, which include a Play-Doh cooking set. While she was playing, she saw one of the Play-Doh "recipe" card. I noticed that she stared at it for some time, then she lift her head and say "roll" then node her head.

A little story on what "roll" means. Now, she had another Play-Doh fun factory barrel set which I kept in the wardrobe. Why did I keep it in the wardrobe? To avoid Grace seeing it and asking to play with it all the time. Why "roll"? When playing Play-Doh I taught Grace to roll the "doh" and make things (i.e spaghetti) out of it. So whenever she wants to play it, she will say "roll".

Ok, now back to the story. As it was quite late last night, I told her, "Not tonight, we play tomorrow, ok?" She node her head.

Morning came and I was thinking (to myself) that I will let her play "roll" later in the afternoon. But Grace thinks otherwise. After finishing her breakfast and one of the Hi-5 episode, she ran to me and say "Roll". Gosh....she still remember that I promised her last night. What choice do I have? Let her play lor....

Once a mother, forever a mother

"Once a mother, forever a mother"...this is such a true notion. Being a mother is really a lifelong journey. Hmmm... thanks to hubby...I need to correct this notion. "Once a parent, forever a parent!

In our everyday lives, we could see that once a person become a mother, she will sacrifice her everything for her child/children. Her body shape ~~ being pregnant for 9 months, her time ~~ spending almost all of her time teaching and playing with her child, when she's not with her child, spending her time thinking of her child, her sleep ~~ waking up at night to tend to her baby, her favourites ~~ forgo eating tit-bits, letting her child take all the good things, and many more other things. These are things that any mother (parent) will do.

A mother will always be caring for her child even after they are married or even after they are with kids. This same mother, will then become a grandmother, caring for her grandchildren. This grandmother will then become a great-grandmother and caring for her great-grandchildren. The cycle goes on and on and on.

Today mother-in-law and I went to meet up with the interior designer. And YES, we are renovating our new home and will be moving in very soon. Anyway, as both of us will be actively involve in the discussion, I asked the favour of my mom, whom willingly agreed, to help with taking care of Grace. So for the whole 2 hours mom was there entertaining Grace with lots of stuff. She took Grace window shopping, then back to the show room. In the show room, they did quite a lot of things. Mom showed her those drawers in the kitchen cabinet and then tell her what those drawers are for. Then she test her, asking her which drawer is for which. Grace had a great time pointing out drawers. After being bored with the game, they played cooking game with the display of pots and pans. Grace sure had a great time!

See, a mother raised her own daughter, and now taking care of her granddaughter, with ultimate joy! Thank you mom!

Throwing rubbish

It's always important that we teach our children to cultivate good morale from a very young age. We have been teaching Grace on manners and morale. One of which was to throw rubbish in the correct place.

You see, we are living in an apartment where elevators are the most important thing for us, for if there's no elevator, then we could not get in or out of our home. Sad to say that, in such moderate class community, there are still people throwing their trash as and when they like. We could see that there are rubbish near the poolside, in the elevators not to mention corridors and car parks!

There are times (in fact almost every time) we could see pieces of paper, food wrappers, cigarette butt being thrown in the elevators. Whenever we see that, Grace will point to these pieces. Mother in law will then tell Grace that those are "垃圾" (pronounce as "la ji", meaning rubbish). Then she will tell Grace that we should not throw our rubbish every where. It should be thrown into the rubbish bin. And walla, Grace learnt immediately. She will point to the rubbish, say that it's "垃圾" then shake her hand, signalling that we should not throw it in the elevator.

Subsequent to that lesson, Grace learnt that one should be throwing rubbish into rubbish bins. She will insist of throwing her own diaper, little pieces of paper, cotton butt and etc.....Good for her!

Obstacle course

It's always amazing and full of surprises when you have a young toddler with you. I don't know about others, but as for me, Grace really fill my days with laughter, joy, fun, tears, anger and madness. She's capable of doing anything at all. Give me surprises when my usual boring days go by.

On Monday this is what she did:

Scrapping mom, scrapping daughter

Every time Grace saw me scrapbooking, she will definately want to join in. I seldom let her join for fear that she will make a mess on my layouts. Sometimes I will let her play with my collection of ribbons. She enjoyed it though.

Today I did something different. She saw me putting glue on pieces of paper and then stick in on my layout. She insisted that she also do the same. Thus, I let her use the glue stick. But then, what to glue? Then I thought that maybe with the little piece of colour paper I have.

I taught her how to apply glue on the little piece of paper and then stick it on to her drawing pad. She loves it. Initially she is satisfied with the glue stick. Then she saw me using the scissors. Then she wanted more. She insisted on using the scissors. Off course, using scissors is a little too advance for her now. Nevertheless, good training for her.

Here's some of the photos taken and the final product: