The Little Destroyer

Little Sze Juin had destroyed or messed around just too many things recently. First, she played our laptop keyboard until the letters on the keyboard came out! I had never in my life needed to deal with this before, so I took some time to figure out how to put them back. That was when she’s about 9 months old. Then recently, she flipped my monitor display – instead of the horizontal view, the screen had become vertical instead! It took awhile for us to flip it back. And a few days ago, my hard disk gave me the blue screen of death. It couldn’t startup at all, and I’m still figuring ways to backup my data in there.. sigh!

Ok, that was the laptop. See what she did to her Jie Jie’s handiwork?

Before that, when it's still good...

Well, her recent victims were our precious fridge magnets that we bought when we traveled around - she had broken a few too. There went the one from Jurong Bird Park, Singapore, and also the one that our friend gave us from Korea. And just the other night, she broke 2 that we got from Hawaii! I was opening the fridge door while carrying her, and her hands were too fast! The magnets fell onto the floor and broke, sob sob…

When will she stop destroying things? Uh, I don’t have this problem with Sze Yi last time…

A Night of Discoveries

Yeah, and it's mostly related to SJ too. It happened that I was home alone with SJ last night, for a few hours. Well, I was taken aback by the things she said and did, all out of the blue and the least within my expectation.

1. She called me Irene!

2. She pronounced her name correctly, Juin Juin! That was the first time I heard her saying her name, and it came out very clearly too. Unlike when her Jie Jie pronounced it, Jun Jun, or Ji Jin :)

3. I was searching for her nappy cloth that I brought back from the babysitter's place, and I asked myself aloud, "Where did Mommy put that cloth?" And I heard her answered me, "I don't know".

4. Her electronic toolbench toy was out of order, no more battery. So I told her to give me some time to put the batteries in. However, this little girl went to take another battery-operated mini piano, took out the battery from there and passed me that!

5. She requested for milk in the bottle, but after I made for her, she didn't want to drink it. Instead, she kept looking at the measurement scale and started counting, three, four, five! Haha, before that, she's been counting 1,2,3, and that night, she surprised me with 3,4,5 out of the blue :)

Story Time

Sze Yi had been requesting stories from us since she was small. Last time it used to be Cinderella, Ali Baba, etc… but now they were no longer constrained to fairytales. She would say, “I want the policeman story!”. Or Mommy’s stories, or Yi Yi’s stories, or the story of the lost buttons, or this curtain’s story, or the story about the Monster that went to school (RS), etc… Mostly, it’s on things around her, or whatever that came to her mind. She even requested me to tell her stories about my car’s wiper! She normally asked for stories when we’re in the car, or when she’s trying to sleep. Ah, boy was I glad that she's slowly getting over this habit now!

Sometimes she would request for stories that we’re all familiar with, for instance, Pinocchio, or the Goldilocks and the Three Bears. But mind you, the storyline would need to be modified. Either the main characters changed, or the storyline would be twisted here and there, and once she liked that, I’ll have to repeat again and again and again for several times before she finally let me go. So, it’s normally very exhausting and I dreaded it when she asked me for stories.

Then one day, I heard her telling one of the stories to her cousin Sarah. It was Mommy’s story, and she was telling her cousin how she was born. I couldn’t stop laughing when she said Mommy didn’t want her tummy to be cut, but Daddy told her that she had to, if not Sze Yi couldn’t come out! LOL! Hmm... maybe (and hopefully) she'll tell me stories next time instead of me telling her!

Little Things That Surprise Me

Scenario 1:

SJ saw her Jie Jie fell down, and I went to sayang her Jie Jie. Not long later, she imitated her Jie Jie's falling down action, and waited for me to sayang her! She actually repeated that several times just to get my attention that day.

Scenario 2:
SJ asked me to open the cupboard door, saying yiu yiu (oil). So I took out the oil. I was wondering what she's up to, when she pulled up her baby doll's shirt and ask me to apply the oil on her baby doll's tummy.

Scenario 3:

She got an electronic cow lantern from her Chim Po, where the cow can walk. I told her that it’s a niu niu (cow in Mandarin). Now when I got her other types of lantern, (bird and fish), she would still refer to that lanterns as niu niu. (LOL!)
Also, we once took the girls out for a walk with their lanterns at night. So after that incident, everytime she went out, she would want to bring the lantern along and said kai kai .

Scenario 4:

The two sisters were playing together and then suddenly the big one bully the small one. So we asked Jie Jie to say sorry to Mei Mei. After Jie Jie told her "Sorry!", Mei Mei said, "Gau" (clever in hokkien).

Can You Tell Who's Who?

Obviously, the less hairy one would be SJ :) My, she can wear the kimono that we bought for Sze Yi when SY's 18months plus already! (SJ's only 16 months plus now). Now, would you say that she hasn't been growing up?

The Laundry Keeper

I am now Mommy’s official helper when it comes to folding and keeping the clothes!

Well, I’ve finally mastered my folding skills, I could even fold the shirt like those sold in the supermarket, thanks to Daddy’s training. He taught me how to fold pants, towels, shirts, etc, and even how to turn those clothes back when they were in reverse order.

Once I was done with that, Mommy taught me how to segregate my clothes from Mei Mei’s and I could now put them all in the cupboard myself! Ah yes, all in correct order too – clothes, pants, towels, hanky all went into their appropriate compartments accordingly. I even know Mei Mei’s compartment too, which was placed in a different room because not enough space in my room :)

So now, one less work for Mommy, because she no longer needs to re-audit my work. But then again, it all still depends on my mood. Sometimes, I would prefer to play first, so if she couldn’t wait, then she would have to do it herself! Ah, and when I found out about it, I would get angry and insisted of doing everything again myself, so she had to let me start all over again…

Of Eating and Drinking

1. Sit down when eating
Whenever I see food, I’ll pulled Mommy along, saying “lai”
Then I led her to the small chair and said “sit down”
I climbed onto it, and sat on it, while Mommy fed me
And I would quietly sit there until I finished my food,
Or when I felt full and didn’t want anymore of that.


2. Self-feeding
I love to eat on my own now
I want to hold the spoon and feed myself
But I still couldn’t really scoop the food with the spoon yet,
Even though I could guide the spoon to my mouth and feed myself nicely!

If Mommy put some food into my mouth,
I would pull it out again to see what it is,
And then I would hold it with my fingers
And slowly munch on it.


3. Style of drinking water
When I want to drink water,
I would do a coughing sound,
So they will know that
I want water!

Another new trick I enjoyed,
Is to pour the water from my sippy cup
Into the cap and learn to drink from there
As if drinking from a cup!

Ah yes I also learnt how to yam-seng with my sippy cup!
From the recent wedding dinner that I attended :)
But after I raised my cup above my head, saying yam seng,
I would pour the water on my head!

When Mommy is angry...

Oops, I’ve made Mommy angry lotsa times,
but I know how to make her smile again.
Now, when I sense that Mommy’s angry,
I would tickle her so that she’ll laugh.
Or, after she scolded me for something naughty that I did,
I would insist that she put on a happy face.
“I want Mommy to be happy with me."
"I want Mommy to show me happy face now”.
"I don’t want Mommy to be angry with me”.

I said all this while sobbing, so it’s impossible for her not to comply!

Going to church with a little toddler

Yesterday was not like any other Sunday. And even though nothing went as plannned, it turned out great. Why? Because Sze Juin was behaving beyond my expectation when I took her to church with me yesterday. I was so proud of her, that I have to blog it here.

To begin with, my initial plan was to go to the 7am Mass because it's easier for me to sneak out when the kids were still in slumberland. But then since I was too tired, I changed my mind and decided to go to the 10am Mass instead. By then, both kids were fully awake. When Sze Yi heard that I would be going to church, she wanted to follow me. I told her ok, but she had to behave. So I changed her into a long sleeve blouse and long pants. As for Sze Juin, hubby decided to bring her to Amah's house, so I packed her porridge and dressed her in a short sleeve blouse with matching short pants.

Halfway on the way, Sze Yi changed her mind. She wanted to go to Amah's house instead. So I tried to place Sze Juin into the car seat (she came out just now because she wanted milk), but she didn't want to go back in. So in the end, I took her with me, despite her not dressed accordingly (as she's only in short pants).

When she reached the church, she was in awe of the atmosphere. That kept her occupied for quite awhile. She was still absorbing everything when they started the Liturgy of the Word. Would you believe me if I tell you that she was behaving so well that I got to concentrate and finished all the readings? Of course in the middle, she wanted to hold the liturgy book and flipped them at the same time, so I let her. But later, she allowed me to catch up with the readings again. Even during the homily, she was sitting quietly on my lap, and I didn't need to walk around at all throughout the whole Mass. At the beginning, she pointed to the door and wanted me to take her out, but I told her later. After that, she never bothered me again. Maybe luck was also at my side because we were sitted beside a nice lady with an 11-year old boy, so that kept her occupied too. When she got sleepy, she would rub her hands on my knuckles, but she never asked for milk. Maybe she knew that I couldn't breastfeed her there.

All these were very unlike the previous experience when I took her to church with me sometime back - just the two of us. She wanted to go out most of the time, if not walking around the place. When she asked me for milk, she would tug at my blouse and pulled it up. So I went out to breastfeed her (I managed to find a suitable place), but she didn't want to drink there! She wanted to drink in the church. Well, that past experience made me vowed that I wouldn't bring her to church with me again next time, but thank God it was so different this time.

Indeed, I had never once thought that it's possible to sit still in the church all the time when we brought a child with us. I've seen some couples with behaving children though, and I always marvelled at how they managed to train them. Not my Sze Yi though. So far, when I brought her along, I could never sit still all the time, she would have lots of excuse to go out, like wee wee, etc. If not going out, I wouldn't be able to focus too, since she had lots of questions to ask. I still remembered when she sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars so loudly when they were singing the hymns. I told her it's a different song, but she didn't want to quiet down because she didn't know how to sing that hymns :) Luckily with Sze Juin this time, I could concentrate throughout the whole Mass, without needing to walk around at all! Isn't that amazing? I even had time to finish reading the bulletins during the announcement session. Of couse, at times, she would insist to sit on the top of the pew in front of us, and didn't want me to hold her. I warned her that it's dangerous, she would fall down. And she willingly let me hold her. Wasn't she so understanding? She enjoyed sitting on the pew, swaying her body to the tempo of the hymns, as if enjoying the music. At times, she tried to touch the nice lady's hand beside me, but then she quickly pulled her hand away before the lady looked.

All in all, I honestly think that this was another milestone worth recording. Praise the Lord!