Parenting issues Archives - Page 10 of 12

Simple art and craft – Rainbow Box

I have not been doing art and craft with my kids for quite some time, mainly because I am usually very tired after work and we have lots of outdoor activities during the weekends with the kids. But, today, I am on leave from work because I need to take care of my baby and my P2 girl since all Primary 1 to 5 kids have 2 days break due to PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) Oral. With such a good opportunity to enjoy a day of stay-at-home-mum, I planned so many activities today with XX, I am now rather dead beat while typing this post. However, the thought of sharing my joy of enjoying an afternoon of art and craft, I do have the motivation to write this post and publish tonight.

So, when XX asked what we could do together this afternoon, I quickly searched in my art and craft box for ideas. Seeing a pack of colourful ice-cream sticks, I decided to make a Rainbow Box out of them. Continue reading “Simple art and craft – Rainbow Box”

My baby’s 11th month milestones

Baby YT is 11 months old!!

I can’t believe time flies by so fast and he now looks more like a toddler which is so different from the cradle-held baby months back. How I reminisce the baby days. He has since reached several milestones at 11 months old.

Physical Development

Baby YT is growing “flabs and pounds”! He still has his baby fats although he has started to look lean now. At night when I look at him sleeping on his tummy, I am amazed that he has doubled his birth length. As the Hokkien saying goes “Baby grows an inch for each night he sleeps.” That’s an exaggeration but it is not far from the truth. He also has 8 teeth now, 4 upper and 4 lower.

Baby YT's favourite position — Baby YT’s favourite position

Baby achievements

Baby YT has perfected his commando crawl. He can crawl at amazing speed! If you compare a proper bottoms up crawl on all fours on ground versus commando crawling with tummy on the floor, you will know it’s tougher to crawl fast using the latter style. He looks like a wound-up toy. The moment you put him on the floor, he “unwinds” the spring in him and crawls away! Any baby race right now??

Just 2 days ago, Baby YT pulled himself up to reach for a shuttlecock right in front of my eyes!! I am extremely proud of being the first to witness this important milestone, you couldn’t imagine how ecstatic I felt! Then the next day, he repeated this newly found skill in front of the grandparents. And everybody cheered! I know many babies have reached this milestone much sooner than my dear YT, still, when it comes to your own baby’s first experience, it always sets off the excitement in the family. I try not to compare such milestones with other babies and much prefer to celebrate my baby’s success at his own pace. After all, it is more important that milestones are reached within a reasonable time frame, and equally important to keep a watch on any serious delay of development.

Things that make my baby smile at 11th month

There are many simple things that can trigger an endearing smile from Baby YT. He loves bath time and loves to see water trickles down from a water filled bottle held at a height. He smiles when he sees his milk bottle in my hands and know it’s feeding time. He laughs when his sister sings his favourite songs from “Charlie and the Numbers”, “Tricky Tracks” and the japanese version of “If you are happy and you know it”. He smiles at anything that spins. He loves to spin the 3-D puzzle globe on its stand. His favourite spins are the wheels on his walker in over-turned position. He enjoys manipulating everything on his hands and turning them upside down. What a discovery! He smiles the moment you carry him towards the main door and out of the house. He loves to go out.

Baby YT loves to play and can really sit straight!

Things that my baby doesn’t like

Baby YT does not like crowd due to the peaking of stranger anxiety these months. He cries when there are too many people cooing over him. What a big contrast to a few months ago when he displayed his showmanship and smiled at anyone who looked his way! We understand his fear and hold him close whenever he shows signs of insecurity. He will hold me real tight and tug at my necklace. At such times, I would secretly enjoy his head resting on my chest, and feeling satisfied that I am needed and trusted to protect him.

Baby YT doesn’t like to be left alone in the play pen. He is irritated if his hair touches his ears. He will brush his ears violently with his little hands and that is sooooo cute! Do I sound like a terrible mum, enjoying his reactions to things he doesn’t like? But for little babies, any reaction from them is simply adorable and irresistable!

My baby prefers warm milk and water. He pushes away the milk bottle if the milk or water has cooled. That makes me wonder how will any babies take to cold milk that is fresh from the fridge as recommended in the books and followed diligently by one parent who happens to be my piano teacher? Have you tried giving your baby cold milk?

Next month same day, will be my baby’s 1st year. Kel and I are busy thinking of a birthday celebration that is cozy and comfortably suited for the birthday baby. We have to be careful not to overwhelm him. The last thing we want to do is to make him cry on his big day. But, isn’t it more fun (yes, for the adults) to have more people to celebrate together?

Baby, you don’t know how happy Mummy and Papa are that you have reached all these milestones! You’ll be reaching the big ONE next month and of course, you don’t know this either! Still, we love you lots!

Happy 11th month old Babe!

I remember the day my son got lost: Weekly Writing Challenge

I remember the day when my son, YH was lost in the shopping mall. It was a frantic search for him. He was only 1+ years old then.

We went to an arcade (an entertainment centre) in a shopping mall. My girl, XX, 3 years old then, was playing at some kiddie station. YH was stomping on some step-on-the-buttons station a metre away. We have 6 adults, kel, me and the 4 grandparents around these 2 toddlers. The adults were chatting away while keeping 12 EYES on the kids. The arcade was noisy as usual, a mix of lousy orchestra playing game station music. The little ones were having great fun hitting buttons and stepping on gears away with no tokens being deposited into the machines.

YH was walking about and running his unsteady steps from one station to the next. Everything seemed normal till I suddenly realized that in my sight radar, there was only one toddler moving about. Where’s the other one??

For what seemed like 5 hours, the next 5 seconds were a frantic scatter of all of us searching for YH. My first thought was to run to the main entrance of the arcade in case he ran out. But my worse fear was him being kidnapped by somebody. I imagined a man carrying him with one hand over his mouth while my boy struggled and cried. This thought made me crazy! Then, alas, kel came looking for me 5 minutes later, and told me YH was checking out some station behind a drop down curtain! Whew! I let out a sigh of relief! If you ever have such experience of finding your child lost, you would have been able to imagine my roller coaster emotions! Hearing the good news, I ran back to my dear boy and hugged him tightly. I fought back my tears.

The whole episode was only about 5 minutes but it could have been forever if he was really kidnapped away! Having many people around with 12 eyes on the kids is not as safe as you think it to be. I would have thought you are looking after the kids and you would have thought I am looking after them. In the end, nobody is actually paying attention to the kids’ whereabouts! This incident took place in our home country, Singapore which is one of the safest country in the world. Yet, as parents, we cannot let our guards down when it comes to kids’ safety. Even till now, YH who is already 6 years old, still wanders off in the crowd. It always drives me crazy to search for him. XX will always tell us where she is going if she is going to be out of sight from us. Boys being boys, will always need that extra attention, but I will not let my guard down for my girl too.

Have you ever encountered such a frantic experience of searching for your kids? Share with me!

This post is written in response to Weekly Writing Challenge: I Remember

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What to consider when choosing a childcare centre

The first time I decided to put my girl, XX, in a childcare centre, I had lots of mixed feelings. On one hand, I know she gets to interact with new friends of her age, she gets to learn new things, learn to share and build up social skills, enjoy art and craft, speech and drama and music lessons among other things.

On the other hand, I couldn’t bear the thought of sending her away from the house for such long hours, couldn’t bear to imagine she had to bathe and sleep there together with other kids on the floor mattresses. It just seemed cruel and sad. Or maybe I should have just left her at home with the grandparents.

But, I knew and we all knew, if she had stayed home, she’d probably do nothing much and watched tv the whole day without me in the house to play with her or guide her in learning. She would have wasted time and learnt nothing. Since I had to work full-time, I had little choice but to enrol her in a childcare centre where she would have plenty of adult and children interaction.

Choosing the centre was rather easy. There weren’t much choice in my neighbourhood. There were only 2 to choose from. I wanted somewhere near our house. So, kel and I went to check out both centres together one day.

There’s a few things that we looked out for to determine which centre is suitable for our dear princess.

1. Distance
Proximity to our house is top priority. I have to think of the person who’ll be fetching her to and from the centre everyday rain or shine.

2. Speak to the principal
This is important to check out what are the principal’s direction and beliefs. The principal is the one who steers the school to its mission. We have to judge if that is in line with our expectations. We asked many questions including teachers and staff experience, curriculum, the daily meals and even asked about their approach to welcome kids on their first day.

3. Facilities
We asked for a walkthrough to check out the centre facilities. Most childcare centres have an indoor playground, music room and individual play areas for pretend play. We also noticed the centre was not air-conditioned, except for the music room. We preferred a non air-conditioned centre as we knew that germs spread easily in the recycled air. Kids do fall sick easily in childcare centres.

4. Observe the curriculum
On the day we visited the centre, there were no children except for the principal and teachers. The centre was closed for 2 weeks due to exceeding number of hand foot mouth disease (HFMD) spreading among the children (in Singapore, it is common for centres to close for 2 weeks due to HFMD). The teachers were sterilizing all the toys, utensils and seen preparing for curriculum activities. Hence, we asked to bring our princess XX again on another day to join in the nursery 1 class so that we could observe the curriculum and her response.

5. Bring your kid to open house or join in for a trial
On the day of the trial lesson, XX held my hand tight as we entered the class together. We knew she was really nervous. I went in with her and allowed her some time to warm up to the new environment. Kel stood outside the classroom and observed from the window. 10 min later, with the encouragement of the teacher Mdm Chia and some outgoing kids, she became more at ease much to my relief. Her feelings about the centre were important to us. Although she did not show much enthusiasm as we had wished, she did not show any averse reaction. That, confirmed our decision in enrolling her in this childcare centre.

6. Fees

This is an important consideration. There are many childcare centres out there that charges from $500 to $1800 per month. There are definitely differences in what each centre offers. As there were only 2 centres in our neighbourhood, and we were not prepared to go a distance for probably a better one which may include Montessori teaching, we were happy with the fees. In fact, after the working mother subsidy of $300, it was really a bonus to us.

Fast forward 5 years now, we are happy with this childcare centre. XX had graduated and gone to Primary school. Whenever she meet the teachers in the childcare, the teachers always welcome her with warmth and enthusiasm. My boy is in K2 class and will be “graduating” this November. In fact, I wrote a thank you letter (you can check this out in my previous post) to all the teachers who took great care of my kids. On top of the above considerations in choosing a childcare centre, I would say my guts feelings do come into play. Always trust the mummy’s instinct.

What factors do you consider in choosing a childcare centre?

Reminders to myself as a wife and mummy

3 years ago, when I was 6 years into marriage and 5 years into motherhood, I wrote a list of reminders that I hope to revisit from time to time. They are the reminders to myself to be a good mummy to my children and a good wife to my hubby. I wrote this list for fear that one day I might be too caught up in a whirlwind of life’s changes, I might lose myself somehow and forget the basic ingredients in building a happy family.

Reminders to myself as a wife and mummy:

1) do not nag too much

2) learn to let go and care less, not care more

3) do not stress your kids academically

4) accept your child’s ability and accept who they are

5) accept who your hubby is

6) learn to take good care of yourself, take care of your own needs before others

7) treat yourself well

8) appreciate small improvements / changes

9) appreciate your blissful life now

10) appreciate that everyone including yourself is healthy

Now, 3 years after the above list is made, I am happy that I keep to most of the reminders, except maybe for no. 1 “do not nag too much” and no. 7 “treat yourself well”.

Nagging too much seems to be the inevitable for mothers. It’s a vicious cycle. If the kids or even the hubby had to have repeated reminders to pick up a piece of paper or to bring the cup to the sink area, how can the homemaker not say the same instruction repeatedly which is what they termed the “nagging”? If all I need to do is to just say it once, and the task gets done, will I ever need to “nag”? Nevertheless, I have accepted this as part and parcel of being human and what I’ll need to do is to say it out in a different tone and manner, perhaps that’ll take away the nagging tone to make the nagging not such a nag. I don’t know. But I will have to try. Does anyone has a good solution on this out there?

Treat yourself well. Usually mothers are like “burnt chop”. They are the ones who eat the burnt chop and give the good ones to the rest of the family. They always put the well-being of the family first and themselves last. Whatever they do, they do with the best interest of the family even if it means to sacrifice their me-time and social life. This is the area I need to improve on. Self-sacrifice has always been the norm for me and putting myself above the others is going to be difficult. So far, I have been trying to treat myself better minus all the guilt. Wish me luck!

For no. 8 and 9: “appreciate your blissful life now” and “appreciate that everyone including yourself is healthy“, I have written a blog post on this and am happy that a check at this point in time, I do appreciate such simple but easily taken for granted things.

How do you keep check on yourself to not take things for granted? And do you nag? Do you have ways to cut down nagging?