reading "the last one"

because we don't have full control over how many kids we will have, and because the past has made me a pessimist, i already feel like i am treating baby like she is the "last one" ... who knows whether and when the privilege of having another tiny life come into our lives will ever happen again? so yes, it means savouring every moment i have with her, bursting with pride at how she is growing up, and feeling somewhat sad when i pack away all the stuff she has outgrown.

http://suburbanturmoil.com/the-last-one-3/2014/02/20/

"When you picture the last one in your mind, he’ll always be running ahead of you and you’ll be trying your best to keep up, your heart bursting with mingled joy and despair. With each day that passes, the ribbon of childhood will feel like it’s unwinding too quickly before you and you’ll feel powerless to stop it, and as your youngest child abandons picture books for ones with chapters and leaves home for his first sleepover and demands that the training wheels be removed from his bicycle, you will be struck hard, repeatedly, by the fact that this most amazing time in your life is slipping away from you, bit by bit by bit."

18 months - soup's her thing

she loves chinese soups!

the way to get her to finish her food is to alternate a spoon of rice with a swig of soup (from the bowl if possible). she also has a really cute way of saying "喝汤" or "shoup" depending on who she's speaking to. 

18 months - all the learning from school

i am pretty glad we switched childcare centres as i think baby is enjoying herself and learning more where she is now. everyday she comes back singing a new song (some i can't really figure out!), but so far, there has been "B-I-NGO", "head and shoulders knees and toes", 女娃娃, "papa something something ... 我们一起 something something", and some chant about "something something teachers, something something friends". i catch her singing or chanting all these unfamiliar stuff while she's at the playground and after lights-out and i guess the only place she learnt these from was school. i should probably ask the teachers about the songs that are being taught so that we can sing along with her at home as well.

maybe now she won't keep singing baa baa black sheep anymore.

it's good to have her exposed to new sources of knowledge since it's very different teaching stuff in a home environment where somehow i feel the group dynamic element is missing and there's always something else around the house to attend to. plus, we only know THAT MANY kids' songs. it's good to have some variety.

18 months - undressing

so, the baby has quite good fine motor skills and i have been teaching her how to zip up her microfleece pyjamas since quite a while back. she can pull the zip up and down quite easily if i hold the pyjamas taught.

one morning last week we found her asleep in the aircon room with pyjamas unzipped until her waist. too bad i didn't get to take a picture of the sight. she must have gotten up in the middle of the night with itchy fingers. thankfully she didn't undo her diaper snaps as well (which she is very capable of now that i have shown her how it works ... regret!)

18 months - in playground school

baby definitely likes playground school more than the previous childcare centre. we sneaked a peek at her this afternoon and she was very engaged in the lessons, doing the actions for the songs, paying attention to what the teacher was saying/doing and following the teachers' instructions like an A+ student. when the chinese teacher asked the kids to take a book and find a seat to read quietly she was the first to get up and do as teacher asked. omg ... it's a rare occasion that she can sit still at home and yet she was able to be the good student in class. amazing.

funniest part was when the assistant teacher came up to me to reconfirm that baby was indeed only 18 months. at first i thought it was because baby was big for her age, but actually the teachers thought she was born a year earlier and that she was placed in the wrong class because baby was very responsive to instructions, understood what was asked of her and was also more steady on her feet than the other kids her age. uh huh. when outsiders make such observations, we realise more and more that she's a special one. we always knew she was quick to learn and all but i have always assumed that kids learn that fast when they are young.

so proud that she's all settled into school and taking to it like a pro.

18 months - more about school

baby's gotten used to bring dropped off at school every morning now. it was waterworks and crying even before we reached the school door for a week but from wednesday this week, she's fussed but complains for a few seconds and then settles down while we make a quick exit so that she knows we are not going to come back even if she tries her waterworks. 

what a relief! 

i still get a full load of complaints every morning though:

"no go school", "go playground only", "go gai gai only", "mama go together", "don't like school", "don't want teacher" and such. 

even though when my mum spoke with baby over the phone today and asked her if she liked school, baby gave an emphatic "yes!" heh.

we will be moving baby to another childcare centre next week where we think the curriculum will suit her more as there are more outdoor activities and hands-on learning which should keep her interested and occupied. to her, the new school is called "playground school" because of the the many toys and big play area within the school compound. hopefully she likes it!

i have realised that packing baby off to school entails more work for me in the mornings and evenings - to make sure we can fit in dropping off baby and getting me to work at a decent time requires us to get up around 7.30 and get ready before baby gets up around 8. by the time she is dressed and fed, it's 8.25 or so when we pack everyone into the car and take a short drive to the childcare centre. we leave for work around 8.40 from the childcare centre and that gets me to work at 9.15 to 9.30. it so happened that i have had early morning meetings for many of the days this past fortnight so we have had to shift out wake up time to even before 7.30 ... which is a pain for me who is not a morning person. 

after baby sleeps every night i have to get her backpack ready for school the next day, which entails packing her bath towel, diapers, extra set of clothes, milk bottle and milk powder dispenser, and mattress cover into her purple backpack. so yes, more stuff to get done every weekday evening now.

i now have another reason to look forward to the weekends because i get to sleep in until baby wakes up. SHIOK AH!!

18 months - school

it was baby's first day at school today! i think i was more excited than she was, and also a bit nervous because i didn't know how she would handle being in a strange environment without us around.

decided that it would be better for the hubby to stay with her at the outset given that she's so clingy to me. so once she stepped into school i "disappeared" from sight while the hubby brought her into the main assembly area. after some complaining that she wanted to go gai-gai, she seemed to settle in ok. the hubby was even able to leave her with the teachers and classmates after the playground session. 

when i peeped in again at 10am, baby was hard at work with a wooden block puzzle and then went on to do a lot of scooping of dried pasta from one bowl to another (and back again). 

i was amazed that she was able to sit at the desk and complete so many tasks with the teacher's minimal interference without getting out of her seat and running about like she's so used to doing at home! it's a side of her i have NEVER seen before and i never knew her attention span could last more than 5 minutes!

even at lunch she sat at the table and ate with the rest of her playgroup classmates without fuss and she ate all her food! it's a rare occasion that she's able to remain in her high chair for so long when she is with us, so i was pleasantly surprised that she didn't get into trouble at mealtime as well.

waterworks only started when she caught a glimpse of me after lunch. but the teachers managed to get her to stop crying after her bath. and she was back participating in the sing along session soon afterwards. what a relief!

hoping that this positive phase will last beyond her first day! 

a mum's time

this article rings true on so many counts and really explains why i feel so frazzled all the time. http://m.asia.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304757004579335053525792432?mobile=y

<blockquote>For starters, not all work is created equal. An hour spent on one kind of task is not necessarily the equivalent of an hour spent on another. Take child care, a task to which mothers devote far more hours than dads. It creates much more stress in women than other forms of housework. In "Alone Together" (2007), a comprehensive look at the state of American marriage, the authors found that if women believe child care is unevenly divided in their homes, this imbalance is much more likely to affect their marital happiness than a perceived imbalance in, say, vacuuming.</blockquote>

which is why if a dad doesn't spend enough time caring for a kid he should MINIMALLY get all the housework done.