It has been almost 16 months and I am running out of steam. Initially, I thought doing it for 3 months would already been an achievement. Almost gave up during the 4th month but decided to press on till the 6th month. Things really got much much better after that, everything has fallen in place, the kid has started taking two or more solid meal and drink lesser milk, and it is also a wonderful sleep stimulant for her. Save money, save time, save trouble washing bottles, save headache deciding what brand of milk to get.

The want to continue breastfeeding is not there anymore. Perhaps it is because she is growing older, and I see the needs for it diminishing. She doesn’t feed so often nowadays, and cannot stay focus to finish her task. She even develops this habit of changing sides every few seconds, which is damn irritating. Then there are her teeth! Thank God she doesn’t bite me, but she tries to grind them against my skin, painful also.

She seems to be taking the fresh milk we introduce well. The amount she drinks is still rather low; maybe around 4oz, but we are slowly increasing it. How much should she drink anyway? 1 cup? She still refuses the bottle and using a big spoon to feed her the milk proves to be much easier. Maybe I should just let her drink from a straw.

Tired, and with no more enthusiasm to continue, I am going to wean her very soon. Ok, for both our comfort, I better keep the night feeding.

I thought I remember seeing an advertisement on TV saying that babies who drank their milk are intelligent and could recognize shapes below one year old. Perhaps it was because I didn’t bought X brand of milk for Yauyau consumption, that’s why she couldn’t differentiate the shapes and sort them accordingly into her shape sorter earlier on when I bought her this shape sorter around her 13 months.

She couldn’t do any sorting at all when I first presented her the shape sorter. She would shake it as a rattle or threw the pieces around, but not sorting. To me, it was like an impossible learning path for her. She didn’t know what to do with the little pieces of shapes. After demonstrating how to put a plastic piece into its relevant hole, I guided her hand to reach for another piece for her to try out. She was interested to imitate, but she couldn’t even get the orientation of the plastic shape correct. She became extremely frustrated after trying very hard to force the plastic shapes into the holes unsuccessfully.

It is indeed a long learning path. She was still mildly interested with it, so I spent about 10 minutes working on it with her before bedtime every night. Took us maybe a few weeks before she was able to understand (or memorise, whatever) that she needs to hold the shapes vertically instead of horizontally. Then it took another few weeks before she suddenly was able to get one piece in by herself. The cylindrical piece is perhaps the easiest as the circle has no angles, and she was so happy with it that she tried to put every other shape into the round shape hole. She tried forcing every pieces into the round hole for about two weeks before she managed to get in an octagon, then the pentagon, the star and now, almost all…if she is lucky and patient. She sees it as an achievement as she would immediately claps her hands, goes “yeahhh” and wait for us to clap our hands to prasie her after getting a piece in. Children always demand recognition.

The most difficult shape for her is a scalene triangle which has no line of symmetry. She couldn’t get this in most of the time without help. As a consolation, she would then dump in all her little plastic toy animals effortlessly as revenge.

I realised that all these while, I didn’t really teach her about the proper names of the shapes. I also wonder if she could recognise the shapes at all. Is she matching the plastic pieces to the holes according to their shapes or is she simply memorising their relevant position. Anyway, as long as she enjoys her sorting times, that doesn’t matter.

The grandma is here. She was busy due to Vesak day last week and was not here. I think she misses the kid and comes specially to visit her again, because she mentioned that she is going to be busy tomorrow will be leaving early next morning.

It was past nine o’clock just now when she arrived. That was Yauyau’s bedtime, a routine I have successfully established some time ago. TV off, lights off, door close, banish the father from the room at nine pm and lie on the mattress with her quietly. She would fell asleep without much fussing, sometime within minutes, sometime longer, but not more then an hour.

Yauyau was almost falling asleep, but the grandma was anxious to see her and pop into the room. That greatly excite the girl and she jumped onto her feet, out of the opened door. The grandma was very happy to see that, and exclaimed, “她还不想睡觉！来，奶奶陪你玩。 ”If that was the father, he would have gotten a scolding from me, but since it was the grandma, it would be an exception. They were keeping each other company in the living room and I walked over to see what they were doing. The grandma actually told me to return to my computer to play computer game while they play. What can be better then that!

We decided to visit Sentosa last Sunday. It was crowded. We wanted to go to Fort Siloso, but couldn’t find any parking lot near it. All the car parks were full and closed. The only car park near and available was the one at the gateway.

If only the monorail is still operational, we would have just left the car there and took a ride to our destination. Taking the Sentosa bus was out of the question. All the buses were packed. It was like during my NUS days when we have to push ourselves onto bus 151 and remained sardined for the rest of the journey. And after overloading the bus with sweating people, there were like another 5 bus load of eager tourists waiting for the next bus to arrive. Some of the visitors were obviously reluctant to wait any longer and decided to do some “trekking” on the road. I can see that the scorching sun melted their merry making good mood.

How I wish to have the monorail back! Hey, we grew up with it. It might be slow and old, but couldn’t it be upgraded? The queue for the monorail might be as long compared to the bus, but it definitely provided a more comfortable waiting experience. Try waiting for the bus, it simply kills whatever high spirit one has.

Sentosa is suppose to be our major tourist attraction, how can the transportation to various part of the island turned into an experience of frustration and inconvenience? How do we expect our tourist to enjoy their trip if they aren’t able to travel to the various attractions comfortable and efficiently. I wonder what meausres the management is putting in place to tackle this problem, especially when the casino is ready.

So much complains, I think I just miss the monorail badly.

By the way, we left the island without setting our foot on it and headed towards West Coast Park. It was our first trip there and I didn’t know what to expect. I was told that it has a big playground there. I was expecting to see a nicely done beach, just like East Coast Park. But after seeing containers and more containers, we didn’t manage to see the coast after all. Is there a coast at all? Or we missed it totally?

Anyway, the playground is really quite impressive. An older child would love it. But however big the playground is, when every Singaporean headed to the same spot, we see another full house event again. It was an interesting sight to see all parents securing a premiere spot to lay their picinic mat just outside the playground while the children crowd around the various stations fighting for a chance to climb onto something.

There was nothing much for us to do there except walking. The air was awfully warm and humid. We seek refuge at the only McDonalds there. The fries were killers, so tasty. I wondered if they soaked them with the sea water at the park; they came with extra serving of salt.

Next time, visit Sentosa and West Coast Park only during week days, well, unless you enjoy crowd.

I confirmed the kid is suffering from extreme stranger anxiety. For the past few playgroup sessions, she has been crying extra loud and refused to go near the others when I brought her out to another mama’s place.

Last night, my friend Steven visited us, and she went screaming for her dear life again, as if some monster was extending their claws at her. And just now when she met my sister’s boyfriend for the first time, she started exercising her lungs again. She was so distressed! She started crying hopelessly when she saw the strangers and kept away from them with a minimum 2metres safe distance. Any nearer will just trigger her anxiety and send her blasting into our ears again. Power lungs, should consider sending her for some opera singing training.

Steven, also a father of a toddler, assured me that her behaviour was most normal. But isn’t it better if the child is able to overcome this anxiety, understand that there is nothing frightening, and be more independent? Ah, I got some reassuring answers from this wise daddy. He believes that at this stage of their life, it is only normal and natural for them to be dependent and attach to the parents. There is no hurry or no need for them to be independent. I should be more worried if the kid doesn’t want to be attached. Oh well, they are comforting to hear.

Luckily she is not so prone to behave like that in places like shopping mall or playground. Maybe she knows the consequence of crying too much outside, that will risk being grounded at home. Just need to bear with the thunderous crying for a period of time until it passes.

I have gotten this musical baton from James although I have told him not to send it to me. And here I am typing this entry again for the second time, because that man had to have that itchy hand that closed my browser before I publish my post. Argh! That irritating feeling of having to rewrite the same thing again, and trying to pretend that this stale piece is freshly delivered from the oven.

Total volume of music files on my computer:

14.87Gb - 3895 songs - 11.3 days

The last CD I bought was:

中国古诗词少儿歌曲集

Song playing right now:

Hmm…some name unknown WOW background music

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

Vincent: ….no idea who sang this
El Condor Pasa: Simon & Garfunkel
燕子: Seven
上帝保佑 : 窦唯
Head and Shoulder, Knees and Toes: some noisy children

Five people to whom I’m passing the baton:

Phoebe of Journal Of The Heart
Ivy of Baby Talk
Mel of Every Little Wonder
Bola of Perspective Of Life
Irene of Baby Steps

Sorry girls, I am a shy person and have limited target to shoot arrows at, thus have to send this damn baton to the mamas who left comments here before.

The father is finally back from his China trip! He is such a terrible workaholic and wanted to go back straight to the office from the airport with his luggages, which I am really not suprised if he did. But no, he came home first, because he wanted to say hello to the kid. Even I, the woman he promised to shower never ending love to, do not enjoy such previlege attention.

The diamond encrusted mouth is slowly opening; we are getting a few semi intelligible words from the Yauyau. The “mum mum” she babbled long ago was probably some sound she was trying to make, and the “bear” she so clearly blurted out her mouth was only a one-day-happening.

Some weeks ago, while James and I were waiting for the rest of the family to arrive at a resturant, Yauyau saw me and greeted me with a loud and most accurately pronounced “mama” when she saw me. That was so sweet and made the meal tasted exceptionally delicious. Just as I thought she finally knows how to address me, she also started calling “mama” every now and then and referring them to any ah lian or ah soh on the TV. Argh, I am mama, and so is everyone else. So far, she has not started calling any uncle or ah peh she sees as “baba”.

Her first few words consist of two fruits, two animals and an adjective. “ah peh” is her “apple”, “nana” is her favourite “banana”, “berd” is the chirpy “bird”, “godd” for “dog” (which she likes to chase), and “ord” for “hot”. It is not difficult to understand that those are the few most common words that she comes across everyday and are also her favourite. She learnt the word “hot” the hard way. The pain she experienced when she touched the oven probably left a deep impression and she goes ” ord, ord ord” whenever she sees the oven or when we hold a drinking mug (irregardless whether it is hot or not).

However, I am quite puzzled why her first few words are all in English. We only speak Mandarin to her, only Indar speaks English to her. Does it mean I have not been talking enough to her? Or are those words easier to pronounce in English?

Presenting Yauyau’s new love, little stool. Their bond is rather strong, they are inseperable sometimes. I think sitting on the stool is her way of showcasing her affection for the stool, especially when adults are nearby to witness it. If we ignore her act, she will nod her head (the reverse way) and make noises to get our attention. Well, we aprove their relationship, so we play along by clapping our hands as a form of acknowledgement. I guess she views that ability as some sort of acomplishment.

She really love little stools nowadays and knows where to find them when her favourite is not available, like little road humps, rocks, boxes, bolsters. Too bad the IKEA stools at home are too high for this shortie girl. But I found another brilliant substitute: the potty that I have chucked away some months ago. Maybe this is a good chance I can make her get friendly with the potty.

From reading parents’ blogs, forums and listening to conversations, can I conclude that there is a set of universal desirable traits that parents like to see in children? Like being friendly, sociable, not shy, able to share, cheerful, active, funny, fun loving, bold, adventurous, etc. Can you see the proud sparkle accompanied by triumphant praise from parents with such a child, and the sort of concerned or even sorry look from the corners of their eyes when another child is not as pleasurably gifted?

I am thinking like that because Yauyau clearly displays some of those undesirable attributes. She is shy, not too eager to please, reserved, much prefer to be alone and scream “hands off me” when strangers try to get close to her. Not exactly the kind of happy baby one would love to see. I have heard and seen so much advices and comments on strategies to overcome her shyness, like bringing the kid for more outings, meeting different people and so on.

But what is the problem with a “less desirable” child? If she is cheerful, good for her to grow up cheery, if she is melancholy, good too, got potential to become some poet. Sociable? Good, probably grow up surrounded by a lot of friends. Prefer to be a loner? What’s wrong with that, sort of independent also. Fussy with stranger? Even better, that means she knows who she likes and who she doesn’t want to associate with. An easy to please baby? Great, no handling problem. Doesn’t respond easily to teasing or fuss when people try to humour her? Attitude, man; but I like it.

One observation I made, some parents seem to equate such kid to a loser. Well, we don’t need to provide more advices to winners to teach them how to win, right? Come on, some children just have a different temperament, and that doesn’t means they should change to behave in the desirable ways. Can’t we see something positive in them for being choosy, picky or even whinny? What’s so wrong about a cry baby? If that is her way of handling stress or expressing frustration, can we spare her some space to release her tension instead of trying to suppress it all the time? A timid child can be a cautious child, a less active child could probably be that observant kid, a less adventurous child may just be that analytical deep thinker and that fussy eater is the child who holds strong opinions on his likes and dislikes.

Certain character building can’t be rushed; the kid just needs more time to develop them. They have their distinguishing set of personality for nuturing, why insist of trying so hard to engineer sometime uncompatiable. And some parents are just as please that their child is special in such a less preferred way. Uniquely my child, mah!