Moving on..

A couple of small milestones. Bittersweet ones at that.

You know I like to put Caitlin to bed. We chat, we jest, we catch up, we learn. And then we fall asleep; sometimes Daddee falls asleep first…

.. which, I would like to know what goes on inside that little head when she sees Daddee falling asleep before her, what she is thinking, what expression is on her face. I can’t recall, in all my grogginess, her waking me up simply because I was (falling) asleep first. This is actually a threat-trick I sometimes use to get her to “comply”, to stay lying down- that “Okaty! Daddee is going to sleep first!” to which she would protest “NOOoooo!” and lie down. I do recall being woken by her constant questions or statements, just not “Daddee! Wake up!” exclamations.

Two significant events happened in the first two months of this year:
- Caleb’s arrival;
- Caitlin starting preschool.

And as all parents know, newborns are usually attended to as soon as they make even a whimper of a noise. And when they are asleep, any risk of waking him is like waking a sleeping giant monster where all hell will break loose. We tread carefully, speak softly, all for his highness.

We also snap at toddlers who are just being themselves inadvertently making noise. Something which, understandably, can easily create jealousy and animosity between siblings at this young age.

By now you’d probably correctly guessed where this is going. Caitlin, for better or worse, is being sidelined; or “marginalised”, in today’s post-election political speak.

Since Caleb’s arrival, juggling between the two of them at bedtime has been a real challenge. Caitlin has to sleep by 9:30pm, by hook or crook, because of school the next morning. Else she’d be all I DON’T WANT! I WANNA SLEEEEEEEEEEP! EEEEEEEHHHHHHHHH

So, to all these, I have had a chat with Caitlin.

1. Because sometimes Hot Mummee and Daddee needs to attend to Caleb, we need her “cooperation” (Okay I use the word “help”) in sleeping by herself, and not have to have one of us lie with her. Okay sometimes we just wanna do our own things as well and prefer that she’d do this;
2. Maybe only this week or late last week, I thought her the word “annoying”, to describe her outcries in the mornings. I imitated her to prove my point, down the the pitch and tone- something which really caught her attention cos she’s seldom hears adults making such noise! She kinda got it quickly.

And so, you guessed it again, it wouldn’t be much of a blog-post if there was nothing to “report”. The above 2 points support each other: Sleep early, so that you won’t be annoying in the mornings! Mummee and Daddee are just outside, Mummee needs to have her dinner (yes she works late) and Daddee’s got work to do (Daddee’s actually fiddling around with his new MACBOOK PRO BABY! getting used to the new gadget and customising it the way I like it, learning how to do stuff like photo managament and video editing eventually. But I digress!)

Yesterday and today, in particular, she woke around the same time as I did, by herself. My little girl’s internal responsibility clock seems to have started… a small sign of growing up.

But the one that I am proud but at the same time sad to see “go”, is that I will miss putting her to bed. We want her to be independant, that she will not create a fuss if it’s not Daddee putting her to bed, that she can go to sleep by herself- like last weekend when we adults were out late and my folks couldn’t pacify her. With this small step, we want her to continue developing other related independance, like getting ready herself, getting changed herself, etc.

But at the same time, for this Daddee, it is already letting go of something, again.

Okay okay I will stop wallowing! Sob.