So we went to the zoo for the N-th time

This has got to be one of the most peculiar child-caring arrangment with the Son. To cut the long story short, we were 'conned' to go to the Zoo - ON OUR OWN - Just the two of us.

But seeing how enthusiastic the son was, I managed to convince every skin cell in my body that the sweltering heat will be worth it. (Mental note: Have to double up the skincare dosage when I go back!)

Jayden is determined to cover every nook and corner of the zoo. He made sure we visited all the animals that he could recognize on the map.

So being a happy kid that day also meant photo perfect for me. *snap snap snap*

To be honest, this is Jayden's first official time in the waterplay. For those who have been to the Zoo with him before would know that the most he would do is get his knees wet. Nothing/nobody touches the hair.

So I'm actually glad that, at the age of 4, he had finally overcome his phobia of water splashing over his head and just be a normal kid and have lots of fun! Next, will be to make him sit on the slide.

We started off the day with me cursing under the sun. But by the end of the day, with the son sleeping peacefully in the car after all the fun, it's evident that spending some family time is immeasurable. :)

On a rather random note, here's wishing everyone a Happy Dragon year in 2012 in abundance of health, wealth and happiness!

Moving on to another school

Dear Son,

This post serves as my letter of explanation to you as to why I have decided to put you through another tormentous round of new environment, new friends, new teachers next year.

It has seemed like we have been changing school every year. As much as we try to avoid, the previous and the current ones just didn't fit the bill. When you were 2, we wanted to put you in a playgroup so as to build your social skills and understand the concept that your life just didn't evolve around the 4 walls of Bishan Street 13.

Even at the mere age of 2, school was already competitive with the atrocious long waiting list. And so you only enjoyed playgroup at Brightstart Montesorri with Teacher May for a couple of months before you moved on to a proper pre-nursery at Thomson Church Kindy.

Life was pretty smooth-sailing and you enjoyed your 3 hours session in school with Teacher Patrick and 陈老师。And there, we witnessed our once introvert son performed on stage to the music of "Round the clock" on your pre-nursery graduation day. We cannot be more proud of you, son. But family obligations never quite meet your life expectations and so we were once more made to believe that putting you in a daycare center would be the optimal choice.

I do not wish to recall the 26 cold calls I dialled sounding like a fanatic mom with no home for my son. I also do not wish to recall the heart-wrenching moments witnessing your 1st week at school, wondering amidst your tears why does school last from 8am to 6pm. And after all the ordeal, you have moved on being a more confident, conversant and independant boy. Good on you boy!

We thought we could finally put our minds at ease and Jayden can nuture his growing years in Agape. Unfortunately, finding a good school is like striking lottery nowadays. In a span of 10 months, the nursery class has changed 6 teachers - yes both English and Mandarin teacher! *covers jaws dropping* Some re-cap of their special characteristics.

Teacher Leela - Started her disappearing acts once Jayden joined school. Would only come to school once or twice in a week.

张老师 - The goofy one. She looked like Abigail twin sister. Once, Jayden came home in his inverted underwear - when I meant inverted, one of the thigh area went into waist area. *gua gua gua*. Finally left because she said she missed 娘家。-_-


Then Teacher Amy - Hooray! Local teacher! But this high class teacher only work half day because she has 'other commitments' in the afternoon. Fine. We accomodate. Unfortunately, she couldn't tolerate the kids and left. Very high class lor.

陈老师 - Sounded like a definite Malaysian but insisted she was from China. During the MTP, she even said kids at these age shouldn't put so much stress on studying so Jayden not being able to lift the pencil is a small issue. Somebody!! Please tell her she should be a nanny not a teacher!

Finally with Teacher Elnie and 庞老师。They are still around. I have lost hope trying to interact with them.

We have tolerated not switching schools despite the lack of discipline in maintaining the quality of the teachers. From local teachers, it dwindled to hiring only Filipinos and PRCs. I have no adverse feelings against these two nationalities. After all PRCs do speak proper Mandarin. But the last straw came when the entire school became infested with Filipinos who couldn't even convey proper messages to me when my son got hurt in school. I was further appalled to see Jayden doned in another classmate's uniform. Didn't the Filipino teacher notice the names on the name-tag?!? My son is not Rendall Seah! *smacks forehead*

Anyway, enough of grieving. My dear son, I hope you understand why Mommy and Daddy is putting you to another school. We're not sure if it will be better because we're not admitting that we're always right and know what's best for you. So we hope you have an enjoyable birthday celebration at Agape before you move on to your new environment at Elfa and make more friends.

Remember, Mommy and Daddy will only want the best for you. Keep smiling.

Something about Jayden at 3.5

Hello Everyone,

Today is a public holiday and my mummy is not blogging. So I decided to take over the keyboard and introduce myself at 3.5 years old.


Yes, at 3.5 years old, I still sleep with a hankie and pillow. Mummy cannot grumble much since I've managed to wean off the pacifier at 2 years old and am diaper-free too. Hey, as a kid, I do have human rights too.


I enjoy taking photos now and know how to smile at the camera though most of the time, I smile so hard, I can't see my eyes.

I have been sleeping on my own bed since 3 years old but some nights I still do creep into Mummy & Daddy's bed because it doesn't really feel good to sleep alone right. I don't understand why Mummy wants me to do it? *scratch head* But anyway, I still love my fire truck bed and would play imaginary fireman when I can't go to sleep.

I finally understood the meaning of Christmas and even helped Mummy to decorate the tree. Because she says that Santa will only give presents to good boy. I'm not sure how true is that because somtimes when I do misbehave, I still get presents under the tree. *cheeky shrug*

My favourite toy has got to be The Chuggingtons. It all started with 2 DVDs that Grandpa got me during X'mas and one innocent trip to Toys R Us. I got my first interactive Chugger - Frostini. I never liked the main characters - Wilson, Koko & Brewster and only collects the rest of the chuggers. Mummy thought there are only 3 characters but look at my collection!



I have all 10 of them now and I'm still trying to get Mummy & Daddy to get the Chugwash for my birthday. Mummy says it's an expensive hobby for one chugger cost $29.90. So 10 means nearly $300! I hope she used her own money to buy my toys. :p


At 3.5 yrs old, I'm still very much a water baby. I love swimming and have recently opened up to the concept of water play. I used to cringe at water showers and sprinklers but now as you can see, I'm enjoying them!


Of course, there are times when you just want to vege out and be a couch potato on the iPad. I even know how to use Youtube to search for my favourite cartoons.

So at 3.5, I'm doing what an average kid would do - eat, play, sleep and sometimes abit of study. I don't have any favourite sport or activity at the moment. I can read 1-10 and only half of the alphabets. I can only write 1 or 0. So that worries Mummy alot. But fret not Mummy! All kids learn naturally so let me play first for now ok? I love you Mummy! xoxo


Signing off,
Jayden
(Mummy's imaginary impression of me)

Moving on

Today marks the end of Jayden's pre-nursery class at Thomson Baptist Kindergarden (TRBK). Ironically, today is also 1 month passed his 3rd birthday.

It never dawned upon me until today that my son will be moving on to another environment. When I dropped him at school this morning, bringing cupcakes for the party and small gifts for his teachers, I then realized that today is the last day my boy will see his teachers, a place he has grown accustomed to for the past 9 months, sharing happy memories with his friends and teachers.

I suddenly felt lost.

Will he like his new school? How long will it take for him to get used to the new environment? Will we need to change to another school because of external factors - distance, teachers, curriculum, environment, etc?

I hated that feeling.

"You'll never know until you've tried" - Everyone would say. So I guess that's really nothing I can do except hope that J gets adjusted as quickly and smoothly as possible. That his immunity system is strong enough to fight away the many diseases at the daycare centre.

I have been preparing alot of things to make the boy feel comfortable with the transition - new bag, lunchbox, beddings, sweater, things that would make him feel familiar and not cry himself to sleep at a foreign place. Telling him on a daily basis that come X'mas he will have to go to a new school and meet new friends.

I really hate this feeling.

On another note, have received Jayden's year-end review at school. Comparing from mid-year performance, it appears that he has improved although I suspect it's just a tactic to make the parents feel better. Till date, the son can only read numbers from 1 - 10, shapes and colors but has no idea on alphabets. That worries me. I need to buck up pronto!

Sleep training

The things we do to encourage the boy to sleep on his own.

We trained Jayden to sleep in his room since he was 8 months old. Until when he turned 2 and found out that sleeping on his own isn't all that comfy as squeezing in a queen size bed with us.

And there comes the many other conniving excuses as well - "Mummy, I'm scared of the pig above my room. There's a Z monster under the bed. I can't sleep in my room it's too hot." So we left him in the comfort zone of our room for about a year, sleeping on a thin mattress on the floor.

One day, I told Liv "It's time he needs a proper bed." That was it. And so it began the search for a decent bed to convince the son that sleeping on it was way more fun than squeezing with us.

I have always wanted to get the Thomas train bed but the size was way too small for a growing kid. Besides, it was only available in the States and hand-carrying the item seemed impossible although I know C's BIL made it back.

Then I recalled the time we visited a local furniture shop selling kids furniture. I was also dreadfully reminded how the son bawled when we tried to pull him away from the double decker bus bed and said it was too big for the room.

One year later, we brought him back to the shop to re-select his bed. And courtesy of his godma, he is now a proud owner of a red fire truck bed.

Well, is Jayden comfortably sleeping on his own now? He still requests for us to accompany him during bedtime. But at least he wakes up on his own now and proclaimed that he had a good sleep. Oh, and he's fully night diaper free too! :D

Man in the house

Sometimes I often wonder if we play conflicting roles in the house.

Dylan does most of the chores as the neurotic man believes that the different colored towels in the house is for specific purposes. And I conveniently had problems remembering them so the only task he has entrust to me is to fold the clothes. Easy peasy.

I, on the other hand, prefer fixing things up - fixing the computer, a new desk, except fixing dinner. Bought a new desk for Jayden from Ikea. We reckoned that it's time we have a decent place for the boy to read his books and pretend he's doing some homework.

It's been a few weeks and nothing has been done so far. The boy has successfully scribbled his book with permanent ink making it very un-readable now. -_-

Toilet training

There was a time, I used to think that weaning off the pacifier was something unattainable, considering Jayden's addiction to it. But HE DID it.

There was a time, I used to think that it will take ages to toilet train Jayden. But HE DID it - at least for day time.

So lately, I have been toying with the idea of training the son to be diaper free at night despite not being able to keep his diaper dry throughout. I hate to think that one day he will outgrow his diaper size and that I would have to upgrade to adult diapers. And probably by then, it would be harder to train.

I finally understood the meaning of "半夜3点叫人起来撒尿" I think there must be some co-relations to diaper training.

For the past 2 nights, I have been diligently waking up the boy to get him to go the toilet. The idea is to induce the understanding to him that if you feel the urgency, you must wake up and go to the toilet. Hopefully he gets it. For now, Jayden has successfully slept throughout the night without any bed wettings. So proud of him! :D

Once this is accomplished, I have another difficult task of weaning the diaper off while poo-ing.

School hunting

I used to thank my lucky stars that I have the support of my in-laws to help babysit my child.

Jayden gets to attend a 3-hour school on weekdays and have his proper lunch & nap in the comforts of a familiar environment. At the same time, it also minimize the exposure of unnecessary diseases such as HFMD.

I thought I could put my heart at ease at least until the boy goes to elementary school. But alas, my luck ran out earlier than I could have expected.

Things changed 360 degrees the moment my BIL's wife gave birth in Adelaide. At first, it was just a simple 'going over to visit them' kind of arrangement. But the dis-organized irresponsible parents had to drop the ball on us 2 days after birth by saying that nobody can do confinement for the poor poor wife (I said poor cause they acted like very pitiful)

And so the MIL have to fly over pronto for 5 weeks which leaves the Singapore home here in a mess - Dylan was in reservist, I was due to fly to Perth for business trip for a week and there was nobody to take care of Jayden!!

Of course, when the well-being of my son is at stake, I will turn into an enraged mother rather than a sympathetic one. We all have our selfish sides so surely, my son comes first. Then again, all these displeasure and discontent could have easily been resolved if PLANNING was made in ADVANCE. I really don't appreciate last minute bombs!

Unfortunately, the damage was done. The FIL took over the baby-sitting for Jayden, the MIL's sister came over to cook the son's lunch and the rest of the adults in the house settled for ta-pao food. I had to accept the arrangement - as long as my son still eats home cooked food, I am happy.

With all the inconveniences going on, I decided that this was the last straw. I have been putting the idea of sending Jayden to childcare at the back of my head. I did consider sending the boy when he turns 4 and that we have settled our new home next year, in addition to him having better immunity by then. But life just don't go as what you plan for sometimes.

In a span of 2 days, I have scouted and rang 29 childcare centres. (I am not kidding. I even have it on an excel spreadsheet) As expected, all centres were fully booked and on long waiting list. Finding a school for kids these days is a torture!

Finally, one of the Oct mummy recommended me Agape Little Uni @ Serangoon. I was apprehensive about selecting childcares as I would prefer someone I know has/is attending the same school.

Dropped by the school and fell in love with it instantly. The place was spacious, facilities were CLEAN, the kind of place I can put my heart at ease for my child to sleep in. I have visited one childcare in private housing before and the cleaniness of the building was atrocious. Can you imagine letting your child sleeping on its floor??!

Back to Agape. The school fees left a lump in my throat. $1.8k for initial deposit - there goes one bag :(

Unperturbed, I decided to bring the son to visit the center himself. He must at least like the school to be in it right?

We brough Jayden to the center. The boy, as usual, was shy in the beginning. But it didn't took him long to get used to the environment. He played the drums on their performing stage, played doh, mixed colors and even spread nutella and sprinkles on a cookie.

And then we asked the ultimate question: "Do you like this school, baby?"

The boy shouted excitedly: "Mummy! I like this school! I want to study here!"

I don't know if it's a moment of over-zealous joy but that was the deciding factor. We signed up on the spot.

Jayden will attend his new school in Dec when his current school term ends. We hope it will be a smooth transition for the boy. *cross fingers*

And for now I can put my heart at ease again.

Days of the life of a SAHM

.... .... Temporary SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom) that is. The MIL had to go over to Adelaide and take over the task of infant sitting for my SIL's newborn - on a VERY LAST MINUTE NOTICE. I shall grief about that later.

I was actually quite excited about this 8-day bonding time with the son - planning some REAL activities for the boy.

Day 1: Sent the boy to school. Indulged on a heavy breakfast - never mind the calories for now. It's only Day 1.

Picked the son from school. Had lunch at Jack's Place and spent the rest of the day/night home.

Day 2: Decided to quarantine the child at home for 2 days due to the high rate of HFMD cases in school. Plucked up courage to bring the terror out ALONE to meet the Oct mummies for lunch. It wasn't so bad after all. :)

After lunch, decided to go for a hair treatment while son takes his nap. Wrong move. Son woke up 45 mins later and me with dripping wet hair. He used to sleep for hours!

Day 3: Ok. We need to get some serious activities done! Wrapped the teacher's day presents and got Jayden to 'write' and decorate the cards. He chose the colors himself. :)

Day 4: Brought Jayden to visit his maternal grandmother at her workplace. Everyone treated the boy like he was a celebrity - giving out balloons, chocolates, sweets. They are now hidden in some corner of the fridge hopefully forgotten by the kid.

Day 5: I declare myself child-care day free. Went for medical health screening and Dylan took over the nanny job.

Day 6: I am almost approaching the end of my SAHM stint and I realized I have not done anything productive with the son yet! *gasp* What happened to flash cards? Tracing letters? Doddling art?!

Jayden mentioned today that he wants to go to the beach for sandplay. Let's see if I ever fulfil his wish. And I have 2 more days to remedy myself. Bleh.

Man in the house

One of the reason why I wanted a place of my own was that I would have the freedom to do the things I want, at my pace and not have people dictating on the time I should go to bed, have my dinner, etc.

However, now I have a little man in the house who decides when I should go to bed, where I should be sleeping and WHO I should sleep with.

Jayden has been sleeping independantly in his own room since he was 8 months old and able to sleep through. But nowadays, he demands that he sleeps at our room. I offered the boy a mattress beside our bed but he is determined to be by my side and even ushered his father to sleep in his room instead.

At times when I want to do my things, the son will drag me to bed and say "Mummy, you're tired. It's time to sleep." Sometimes such gesture warms my heart for I know he just wants me to be by his side. But at times when I really just want to vege catching the tube, I end up being asleep! Grrr....

Of course, the other man, aka Dylan is not very pleased with the current sleeping arrangement but we would just have to make do until the son gets bored with me.

On another note, Jayden has also started to ask a string of questions that leaves us baffled sometimes.

Where is our home?
Where is Seng Kang?
Why Mummy have to go work?
Where is work?
Where Jayden has to go school?
Where is the truck going?
Where are we going for dinner?
When is my birthday?
Why is it in October?

It's an endless list of questions that only starts from one. Even the neighbour who used to coyly answer the curious boy's questions now keeps his doors closed.

My boy at 2.5

Alot has commented that Jayden has grown taller, speaks (argues) better and looks like his mother (thank god).

We used to worry about Jayden bumping his head onto the table top. Unknowingly, he is standing well above it now. Jayden has also been sleeping in his room when he turned 1. He scoots off to join his classmates after I dropped him at school. He nags about how long I take to dress up and even chooses what I wear. He will tell me he is sick so as to avoid attending school. He can also now tell me he needs to go to the toilet and pee like a man.

This is when I realized my boy is no longer a baby. (although he'll always be one to me)

Jayden has transformed to an intelligent boy. One that has a mind of his own, though a very stubborn one and a fiery temper to match. We are constantly struggling to guide our boy patiently. Teaching him the right values hoping that he will become a fine young man when he grows up.

It is an ongoing challenge for us as the boy sometimes refuses to relent. Hard tactic, soft tactic. We have tried it all. Many says it is due to the Terrible Twos phase. We certainly hope so!

Nonetheless, Jayden has brought to the family immerse joy whenever he cracks a cold joke. (He is such a cheeky boy!) He also provides never ending worries to us whenever he falls ill or have a bump on his head.

My precious son is 30 months now.

Mummy & Daddy loves you always.

Phone talk

When I was in Korea...

** Over the phone **

Jayden: "Mummy..."

Me: "Yes, baby. How are you?"

Jayden: "Mummy...I want surprise."

Mummy: "????!!!!! Ok. I've bought you a surprise but you need to be a good boy and get well ok"

Jayden: "Jayden good boy. No sick" (even though he was running a high fever at 39.6 degrees!!)

Mummy: "Remember to take your medicine and go to bed early ok"

Jayden: *cheeky giggles* "Ok mummy. Love you"

Mummy: *heart melts* "I love you too. Good night"

Jayden: "Good night"


At that instant, how I wish I could go back and attend to my sick boy. :(

Jayden's off school for the entire week. We reckoned he should get ample rest and not risk getting another viral infection.

Today's the third day and I'm praying hard my boy gets back to health again.

Sleeping in the buff

We're still wondering who he has inherited this habit from.

Jayden has the penchant of taking off his pjs and diaper in the middle of the night. This got me worried because he is not toilet trained yet!

This resulted in alot of touching and feeling the mattress IN THE DARK.

We have no idea why. Could he be feeling hot? We've tried swopping to shorts but the son just prefer not to wear ANYTHING.

There were desperate times I wondered if this act is even part of the T2 phase?

This may be an urgent sign to start toilet training the son SOON.

You go potty, you get a sweet

I have no idea when it started.

Initially, it never crossed my mind to start potty train Jayden as I left the dirty task to his school to manage.

However, Jayden has been showing signs of waiting to go to the toilet. And so, we took out the potty over the weekend and left it in our bath room, hoping for a miracle to happen.

We have randomly told Jayden before that if he needed to pee pee or poo poo, he needs to use the potty (although back then, we didn't even have a potty in the house). Last Sunday, Jayden initiated that he needed to poo poo and proceeded to the potty. And so he sat, and sat, and sat. But nothing came out. Then he asked if he could take off his diapers and try again. And he sat, and sat, and sat again. Still zilch.

I don't know what sweet mother of science struck me, I suggested to Jayden confidently that if he can poo poo in his potty, he will get a sweet.

A few minutes later, Jayden came running to me, diaper-less, screaming "Mummy! Mummy! Sweet! Sweet!" I proceeded to the potty, and found a tiny dropping. REJOICE! My son has finally poo-ed in the potty!

And because parents are supposed to keep promises to their kid, Jayden got himself a sweet.

Shortly after, Jayden managed to squeeze a second tiny dropping and requested for another sweet. So scheming!!!

Later in the night, our son also managed to pee for the first time in the potty.

Are we looking forward to diaper-free days too soon?

His funny words

Mummy: "Jayden, whenever you sneeze, you need to say Excuse Me"

**ahhh choo**

Mummy: "So what must you say?"

Jayden: "Excuse me. Order juice & french fries please?"

Mummy: "?!?!?"

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Mummy: "Jayden, what is Mummy's name?"

Jayden: "Em-mer-tee!" (MRT) -_-

Mummy: "NOOO! It's Emily. Now what is daddy's name?"

Jayden: "Dee-NAR!" (Dinner)

Mummy: *fainted*

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Jayden sings a song he learnt from school.

Jayden: "Good morning, nice to see your money face"

Mummy: "Jayden, are you sure it's money face?"

Finally heard the song one day and it's actually SMILEY face.

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Jayden plays with the balcony sliding door.

Jayden: "Mummy, come sit here"

Mummy: "Why Jayden?" Proceeded to sit down.

Jayden: "Ding dong. Trains door closing. Tu tu tu tu...."

Mummy: "?!?!? Where are we going?"

Jayden: "Next stop. Ang Mo Kio."

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It just gets funnier talking to the kid these days. :)

A very belated gift

When Liv asked what Jayden wanted for his 2nd birthday, I was stumped. Not that the boy has all the toys in the world - it's just that we didn't want another bulky plaything lying around the house.

And so the autocratic mummy pondered on other options - Enrichment, dancing, art and even swimming classes. We attended a trial at Gymboree Music. And I must say it was DREADFULLY BORING. The teacher failed to even get Jayden to dance. The long waiting list on the swimming classes was enough to turn me off.

So after much procrastination, I finally decided to bring the son to the Thomas the Train show - after witnessing how much he enjoyed himself at the Hi-5 Musical.

I requested for only Mummy and son tickets but who knows Liv surprised us by coming along as well! "Just to spend some bonding time with Jayden", she said. :)

Before the show starts

I was a little apprehensive on the show due to the last time we watched the free performance at Marina Square - Thomas was literally stationary all the time. How can a live show be anything interesting when nothing is moving?! It needs to be dynamic!

And we, together with Jayden, were pleasantly surprised at how comprehensive the props were. Definitely every dollar well spent! :)

Although Jayden loves Thomas the Train, I must shamelessly admit that I couldn't recognize any of the other characters (except very obvious Thomas) until that night! So very unglam.

Thomas & the crew

And there we have Jayden with his very exorbitant Thomas light spinner. We realized that Singaporean parents are willing to splurge on their kids. The poorly crafted toy costs 20 bucks and it was sold out before the show started.

Thanks Liv for the wonderful birthday treat! :)

Going to school

Jayden has attended the playgroup for the past 2 weeks. Initially, I was a little apprehensive if he would adapt well to the environment, given that he was always under the care of my in-laws or myself.

My worries were unfounded. Jayden would eagerly put on his school uniform and shoes and each time I asked "Do you like school?", my little boy will chirply replied "YES!". :D

The teachers left positive remarks on the boy's behaviour. Albeit there were times I would peek into the teeny tiny pinhole and find my son to be the only one running around whilst the rest of his classmates were quietly reading. -_- Dylan uses the excuse to call his son "OUTSTANDING".

But that doesn't matter. Our main objective to put Jayden in the playgroup is to socialise and interact. Expecting a 2 yr old toddler to sit through 1.5 hours without itching a butt is deemed to be too challenging. We will leave the 'focus area' when he is older.

In less than 3 days, our little terror is turning 2.

Before I forget

As the Son approaches his 2nd year, I have almost forgotten that he is no longer the dependant baby that relies on me to remember his feeding and sleeping schedule.

I no longer can dictate what he should be eating/drinking. If it's something the Son dislikes, he will display his displeasure in the most dramatic way that you can hardly notice.

So before I forget, I just need to pen down some of the memorable milestones.

1. Jayden can sing the last word of each phase of the song such as - Twinkle x2 little star, Baa Baa Black sheep, Wheels on the bus, I love you Barney, etc
2. He still can't count but he can tell us which bus to go to Bishan - Bus 56
3. When asked on questions with "How many", he will always reply "2"
4. He can form short sentences like "Mummy come back, fetch Jayden, go back home"
5. He still loves riding on the bus and mrt. It makes me wonder when he will reach 0.9m
6. Jayden is able to relate and recognize things - like going to the zoo, seeing monkeys, elephants and polar bears.
7. I am glad that he shares his toys when asked. He doesn't have extreme possessivness.
8. He corrects us when we say "Bus-stop", when it's actually "Interchange" - where did he learn that from?!
9. Like every other kid, he loves music, especially grooving to hip-hop.
10. I cannot remember when, but he has learnt the meaning of saying "No".

And there are so many more things that I wish I can recall.

My boy is growing up and there's a part of me wishing that he can always be that little boy I can cuddle to sleep with, demands me to sing him a song, holds my hand tightly when he's scared and run to me for a hug when he needs one.

Look Ma, no hands!

Today marks the 1st day Dylan is away for his 2 weeks of reservist. The last time, he was away for 3 weeks. It was a challenge to ferry Jayden to-and-fro our place and in-laws single-handedly, given that our 1 yr old couldn't understand the meaning of "WAIT" in his car seat.

Now, coming to 23 months, the boy has understood that while Mummy is driving, he has to be strapped in the car seat for safety reason. Except that, our cheeky boy also understood how to traumatise his mother while on the road; by removing his shoulder belts and telling her matter-of-fact with a grin.

I am glad I have managed to remain sane in times like these.

The woes of a mother

If there's any quicker way to teach your child to speak, it will be to introduce them their favourite food.

Jayden can speak in an almost immaculate enunciation - Fish, Pork, Rice, Soup, Noodle, Bread, Biscuit, Pancake, Ice-cream, Milo, Cake, Waffle and the latest on the list - French fries. Except when extremely hungry, the words doubled - cake cake!

He can detect the dangerous yellow sign from a distance I had to squint my eyes. He chomps the oil-laded high carbohydrate potato faster than I can shove a spoon of congee into his mouth. It doesn't help when you get flyers stuffed in your mailbox only to be discovered by the curious boy. I am almost certain his next word will be - Happy Meal.

Thank goodness the energetic kid sweats buckets to make up for the high calorie food.

I get migraines thinking of the son sweating in the TAF club in future.