The day Didi’s hands found his own legs.

We missed last week’s orientation/transition program which last only 1.5hour because Yauyau was down with cold and she started her first day with the full 3 hours program. It was extremely tiring and I am almost drained of energy after Yauyau ended her 3 hours session before noon. Nevertheless, we survied.

It was stated in the school rules that parent/maid aren’t allow to stay within the classroom past the first 3 days and I expected myself to be chased out of the classroom. However, there were a handful of wailing kids to handle and the teachers asked me to stay behind until they could managed the other crying kids first. I could see that they were really quite appreciative that I stayed back to prevent adding another headache to them, haha. And that was how I sort of became an assistant teacher for 2.5 days.

The kids were more settled today, though one of them vomited a huge amount of milk after some voilent crying. So I took the chance and sneaked out of the classroom after one hour of staying with Yauyau. Naturally, she started crying and screaming. The teachers closed the door and shut the windows, cutting off all the clues of how my girl was coping without me. I stayed around the school premise reading my book, expecting the teacher to send me an SOS signal any moment to pacify my girl. Well, it didn’t happen.

It was finally 11.30pm, time for dismissal. Oh man, I could see the sad expression on Yauyau face when she saw me waiting at the door. It was as if a great wrong was done upon her and she had suffered enormous sorrow. I guessed I had painted a picture that trumatised myself more then herself, for she brightened up as soon as she saw the playground outside the classroom and was happily running up and down the slides. And when she got home, she seem very proud to tell people that I wasn’t in the classroom to keep her company. Must have been quite an accomplishment to her.

Maybe it is some kind of girl’s thing to sleep in a sea of furry animals. It has become a daily napping routine, dragging out all creatures big and small, putting them to bed one by one and then willingly sleep after that.

We have a weird addition lately though, she fell in love with her new umbrella (one of her birthday present) and insist on sleeping with it. And yes, the umbrella must be opened; she won’t compromise with a folded one.

Ha! Great doodle hands in action. She has finally progress into drawing circles (or oddly shaped circle to be exact) these few weeks after a few months of drawing lines or some other funny strokes.

She has always doodled on a roll of butcher paper or an A4 notepad which allow me to keep all her past creations. They clearly demonstrated that she was totally clueless about drawing in the beginning, with only dots here and there, which later became very light, feathery strokes of inches long lines. The lines slowly increase its length, strength and even colours. I guess switching between colours was a concept she acquires much later from the rather monotone stuff she created in the earlier months.

Now she is totally into frantic drawing of circles, I wonder when she would be able to take control of her hands and graduate into drawing simple shapes like triangle or rectangle.

Isn’t it great that the kids are becoming more and more helpful as they grow older? They can be such enterprising little dears who are ever so enthusiastic to help us with the household chores. They must have been observing us sweeping and mopping the floor, wiping tabletops, boiling water, throwing rubbish, doing laundry and have been diligently learning how to do it. Ah, they just can’t wait to try their hands on these tasks.

So one day, she began drawing tissues paper from the box and started wiping here and there. I believe this is one of the toddlers’ favourite activities. Then she began helping us lazy adults throwing rubbish into the bins. She can’t wait for me to do laundry, so she could put the dirty clothes into the machine. Watering the plants gives her enormous pleasure too, but the poor plants are badly victimised by Yauyau zealous act of over watering.

She is up to sweeping the floor lately and has been arming herself with the broom and pan, walking around the house trying to sweep up some invisible stuff. How I wish she would be as diligent when she grows up and not becomes another lazy bum like her parents.

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She is very enthusiatic about her newfound skill of jumping lately. I guess it must be rather exciting for her to be able to life both legs above the ground and feel the thrill of floating in the air for that split of a second.

No more bending of legs and and trying very hard to bounce herself off the ground uncessfully. Yeah, she could only imitate us bending our legs and then straightened her body, without any uplifting as her legs seem to be firmly glued to the ground.

Children on TV programmes, movies or cartoon skip around and I used to question that. But it is true, she has been skipping around rather frequently like that too. Let’s see when she can hop on one leg.

The father is away again. I think the kid is rather disappointed not to be able to see her father every night after we returned from grandpa’s place. She goes ” papa papa” and points towards the room like what she has been doing everyday, then expecting the familiar face to pop out, but has been unable to get any respond.

Well, that is like about 3 minutes of missing the dad and everything will be back to normal.

Is vainity something that is pre programmed into the female genes?

Naughty shoes! How much more eat milk energy must I use!

This is better! Flip flop, flip flop…..

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?