October 20th, 2005
Never Learnt The Lesson
» motherhood
It is a lesson parents like me never learnt and we have to end up regretting our decision every single time. Nope, its not anything abusive or life threatening, it just makes us embarrassed, frustrated and regretful. That’s it, bringing the kid to the restaurant to have meals with friends.
I guess we all go through the difficult decision making stage whether or not to bring the kid out. That poor pitiful look on their face send us instant signals that they shouldn’t be abandoned at home. We reminded each other to stand by the decision not to let the kid tag along or risk the dire consequences. We struggle to stand firm, and then we gave in. She shall come along, maybe she is older now and would sit still. Yupe, fat hope. It was already commendable that she could stay calm for about 15 min or so, and then after that, all she did was to struggle to come out of the high chair. I tried to sit her on my laps, and she started wiggling and twisting to break free. She just preferred to wonder around the eatery and made a nuisance of herself.
We requested for more waffles from the ice cream parlor to keep her busy, but she gobbles them down in a minute or so. Well, I can’t possibly ordered 20 more biscuits to keep her busy for 20min. It was terribly to catch up and chit chat with friends with a kid at hand, until we found our saviour of that night. A glass of cold water and a little spoon saved our night. She tried to scoop the ice to put inside her mouth. The she tried to feed herself with spoonfuls of water. And that kept her busy for the rest of the night. Next time I know what to do, order more water, with extra ice chips.
October 25th, 2005 at 6:36 pm
Don’t be too hard on yourself. My 3yo though can sit through (not still) his meal, but once he’s full, he will want to get out of the place. So, for important meetings which I can’t leave as and when I like, or for a child to making a scene, I will get a baby sitter.
October 25th, 2005 at 10:40 pm
Something to share from early childhood education — for every year of our age, we gain one minute of focus span (if I remember correctly — up to a maximum of 30 minutes only!). This knowledge made me feel better when I realized that it was not my ‘failure’ when I couldn’t maintain the attention of some of the very young children I was first put in-charge of. I wasn’t experienced enough to know then that I couldn’t expect them to keep still for a longer time than I’d expect. :p
If we try to re-trace finely a 2-3 hr classroom session/seminar we had recently attended, we might be able to recall that after the first 20-30 minutes of the session, we shift our eyes away from the speaker to look at other things in the surrounding, shift a bit here and there in the chair, probably discuss/chat with someone we know sitting next to us or even doodle on a piece of paper if we have a writing table.
It is with this basis that pre-school curriculums are designed to be highly interactive using songs and play. A baby-sitter would be a better option to relief you for a night out. I’m sure baby would be happier in the home environment she’s familiar with if the baby-sitter is a good playmate for her.