Speshol Station

Last weekend, as we get into the car to run yet more errands for our home renovation (furniture hunting walks a fine line between heaven and hell, heaven when we find the perfect piece and hell when this perfect piece is nowhere to be found).

E pipes up: Are we going to a speshol station?

Me: Um, no not really. We're not going anywhere special, just getting some errands done.

E: No, are we going to a speshol station where I can get the Lego toy car?

Ohhh, he meant 'petrol station'! The F1 is in town, today is the last day of the races, and the petrol station was running a promotion where buying $60 of petrol allows you to buy a Lego replica of the F1 racing cars.

The husband had bought one of the Lego cars when he last filled up the tank and E remembered.

What's In a Name?

E and I were having our usual pre-bedtime conversation and this came up.

E: Mama, why is my name E?

I blathered on about how daddy E and I gave a lot of thought on what name to give him before he was born and we thought that E was a very nice name and that's why we chose it etc and so on.

E: Well, you should have named me 'David'. I like that name.

Me: If you like, you could apply to change your name when you grow up.

E: Okay. I'm sleepy now, good night mama!

Restraint

5 July 

E showed remarkable self-restraint and listening abilities today.

We had a long day of furniture shopping with my parents. E was getting bored and tired from not napping earlier in the afternoon. He was bugging me about sitting on kiddy rides at the mall and was going on and on about it. 

I squatted down to his eye level and explained to him that I know he's tired and really wants to sit on a kiddy ride, but I was discussing furniture options and prices with his papa at the time and we had to leave the mall in 5 mins (my parents were at the customer service counter getting something done and we were waiting on them).

He took it rather well. I saw his downcast expression but he said, 'Ok.' and settled down to wait quietly.

So so soooo proud of my big boy and I told him that tons of times today. He also showed an incredible amount of patience while we shopped for furniture in a crowded and noisy mall.

I was inspired to write this post after I read this article on Aha! Parenting.com.

Allergies

23 June

My allergies are acting up due to the change in weather, it happens several times a year. There is a constant flow of mucus from my sinuses, it was getting annoying. 

I had a nagging headache the entire day and told E that papa needs to help me because I'm not feeling well and he cooperated really well. Which means he listened to the husband and did not argue about every single thing from bath time until it was time for bed.

Bedtime went smoothly, E did not do his usual negotiation for an extra bedtime storybook. The husband read a Mandarin book to him instead. I do the English books as my Mandarin is atrocious. 

Couple hours after E falls asleep, he wakes up and sees me awake and reading my phone. He asks if my nose is ok, 'Do you feel better, mama?' I tell him yes but my head still hurts.

He looks at me then says he will 'pat pat' me so that I will feel better and starts patting my stomach as he falls back asleep.

<3 

A Princess Morning

23 May

This morning when I wake up, E tells me a story.

E is the princess and I am the talking castle that he lives in. 

Papa is the monster that Princess E needs to hide from and 'mama talking castle' (E's words, not mine!) would protect him.

He has the most amusing dreams. I've been trying to explain the difference between a 'day dream' and the dreams he has at night. Sometimes he will be falling asleep and suddenly wake up to describe a dream to me. I figure it's his imagination sorting through the day and putting information together. 

Pretend iPad

29 April

At bedtime today E tells me, 'Shhhh, I need to think about Sunday and not buying things at the petrol station.'

And I go, ' Ok darling.'

Once done, he says he's trying to think of how to transfer the thoughts inside his head to the outside. Then he says he'll write it down on his pretend iPad and shows it to me before going to sleep.

<3

Where?

24 April

The 'where' questions have started:

• Where does apple juice come from?
• Where does Ribena come from?
• Where does 'bak' (generic Hokkien term for meat) come from?
• Where do eggs come from?

As I write this catch-up post on 18 August, E has progressed from asking simple 'Where' and 'Why' questions and turned them into long conversations about making a drink like Ribena on his own now that he knows where it comes from (blackcurrants).

He also asks a lot of 'farm to table' questions. Like where does cheese come from? My answer has to start right from the beginning with milking the cow, processing milk into cheese then the cheese being transported to the grocery stores where we buy the cheese. Same with meat (chicken, pork, fish etc) and vegetables. I'm trying to be as factually accurate as possible but I'm a little hazy on some of the details. The hazards of living in a country with little space to spare for gardens and farms.

He's an information sponge, I tend to forget this. He takes the information we give him and extrapolates. In retrospect, it's amazing. Caught up in the moment, I find myself sighing a little when he asks so many questions at the same time because I'm tired of answering.

So here's a note to myself:

Stop sighing and answer questions enthusiastically because E is learning!

Kids and Eating (Part II)

20 March 2014

So E has been starting to refuse food. He used to love chicken rice and would eat it all up by himself, now he only wants the roasted chicken skin with rice. If I sneak a piece of chicken in, he spits the entire mouthful out. 

I have resorted to telling him, 'I'm sorry but the skin is stuck to the meat. If you want to eat skin then meat comes along by default.' 

He also has a new found love for the crispy coating on tonkatsu (Japanese pork chop). And anything with a deep fried coating, KFC is also a favourite. 

We have been having talks on 'Real Food vs A Snack' and have implemented a rule where E has to eat 'Real Food' before getting 'A Snack'. 'Real Food' meaning rice, vegetables and meat and 'A Snack' meaning chocolates, biscuits and sweets.

E uses the phrase 'sweets and treats' to refer to snacks. So cute. Except when I need him to eat some rice or he gets a stomach ache because he gobbles up oily and sugary food and neglects to line his stomach with the basic protein and carbohydrate groups. 

E has also been asking for Toblerone at breakfast. Sometimes he screams in my face as I am waking up to demand chocolate or some other equally inappropriate food item for breakfast.

17 August - Looking back while writing this delayed post, I think we have come a long way since March. It is now August and while E still loves his 'sweets and treats', he no longer yells about wanting chocolate for breakfast and actually had a good-sized portion of Korean red bean rice and grilled saba for lunch today. With an apple-flavoured drink which isn't ideal but 'you win some you lose some'.

Kids and Eating

This is not a post about how to get your child to eat because frankly, there are tons of other articles on the interwebs about it and I don't want to fight that battle 3 times a day with E. So I try to relax and go with feedback from E on whether he is hungry or full. But we do want him to get used to sitting together at the dining table and having meals as a family so even if he is full, we ask him to sit until everyone is done.

However, some days it's a losing battle for me because 3 year olds just aren't meant to sit nicely at the table all prim and proper. Some days, I feed E as he runs by me pretending to be Iron Man, or a jousting knight in a tourney or sometimes he just wants to run laps up and down the dining area.

So lately E has been pulling a stunt (usually at dinner) where he will eat 2 - 3 bites of food and say he is full so that he can leave the table and play, then when everyone else is done eating and we've moved on to bath time and getting ready for bed he will say,' I'm so hungry! I'm so really hungry, mama!' Then I usually tell him to drink water and go to sleep because the next meal is breakfast when the sun comes up.

I feel pretty horrible saying that to him because as a mother of course I do not want my kid to be hungry! But then again, I'm worried that if I give in now then he will be asking for food at all times of the night and bedtime will go haywire.

This has been going on for a couple months now and I hope E gets the message soon because I love watching him eat his meals happily and be full afterwards.

On a positive note, E tried liver pate from Brotzeit at Star Vista and really liked it. He was eating it off my fork and asking for more when it was finished.

Edit to say that this post was inspired by what I overheard a grandmother saying to her granddaughter in the lift recently. It was very similar to a conversation that I've had with E many a time over the past few months as he grows older and more aware of how yummy 'junk' foods can be!

I've re-constructed the conversation below, please allow for some dramatic license as my memory never really was very good!

Granddaughter: I'm so hungry! 

Grandmother: But you told me you were full and did not want to eat your pasta for lunch? And you had that biscuit and muffin earlier, are you really hungry now?

Granddaughter: Yes! I'm hungry now! 

Grandmother: You've got to be kidding me. Well, we are going to get some yummy cupcakes from the shop upstairs, would you like a cupcake then? 

Granddaughter: Ok!

Reminds me of my never-ending battle to get E to eat more whole foods (e.g. rice, meat, fish, veggies etc) instead of snacks and processed foods.

Singing Toddler

I was thinking about this post on 28 November after toddler E's 3rd birthday. 

He's started singing to himself these days. Usually at bedtime, sometimes with nonsensical lyrics and sometimes he sings the theme songs to the cartoons he watches like Doc McStuffins or Sophia the First.

Cute and silly at the same time.

Although lately he's been on a Kamen Rider binge the past few weeks due to both me and the husband being down with a horrible cough / cold and only back to feeling 100% healthy a week ago so we've been lax in our TV management. It's especially tough keeping E entertained when both parents feel like zombie extras from The Walking Dead so he's been getting a ton of Kamen Rider videos, songs and toys. 

I felt like it was some sort of cruel joke that a virus / bacteria that's kept me and the husband sick for almost a week only kept E out of action for 1 day.

ONE DAY.

E was sick and lethargic (which meant earlier nap and less demands) for all of 1 day. After that he was sick but recovering so he was back to bouncing off the walls albeit with a constantly running nose when the husband and I could barely put one foot in front of the other.

No matter. We are all back to health now and that's the important thing!

Happy 2014!

It wasn't so long ago that little E looked like this:

27 April 2011

Hi mom

And now he looks more like this:

24 December 2013

Picasso-ish

I'm glad that I can look back on those early days of sleep deprivation + steep learning curve in caring for a new baby and figuring out how things will work with the husband and in-laws and just family in general and say: I SURVIVED.

Things can only get better from here!

Happy New Year everyone!

Happy 3rd Birthday Toddler E!

I planned a quiet celebration for toddler E's 3rd birthday this year.

We went to Imperial Treasure at Marina Bay Sands for lunch as we were spending the night at the Marina Bay Sands hotel for a staycation / birthday celebration for toddler E. Both sets of grandparents and my cousins joined us.

The cake was a simple one from Polar Puffs & Cakes. My sister sent an enormous helium-filled Elmo (via toddler E's auntie W) which made toddler E one happy camper.

Happy 3rd Birthday!

Elmo

I only managed to take 1 picture of the food, the peking duck was really tasty, yum! Too busy eating to take more pictures.

Delicious peking duck

After lunch it was time to put our stuff in the hotel room and go swimming!

Elmo coming with us to the hotel room

Parked safely in a corner

After a swim in the rooftop pool

The Gardens by the Bay looked quite lovely in the evening light.

Great view!