Monthly Archives: December 2008

Friends among 4 year olds

Posted on 26 December, 2008 | 4 Comments

When Caitlin had her 4th birthday party, I had invited these particular two friends of hers.

The first is a friend over a year older than her. Their Mummees have known each other before they knew their respective husbands, and naturally when both had daughters, they play when the adults get together. The second is a classmate she gets along well- she talks about her all the time after school; at parent teacher meetings the teachers have even complained that these two chatterboxes had to be separated!

If I can categorise these 2 friends- one is while in school-mode, the other is outside of school-mode; if you know what I mean. It’s not that Caitlin is or acts differently in and out of school, but she only sees these friends in respective surroundings and circumstances.

So this party was held in an indoor kids’ gym, you know- steps and rubber balls and slides. And these two friends were present.

Being host we arrived early. Caitlin was off to the gym. Her friends started arriving, and quickly joined in the fun. This was also the first time I watched Caitlin playing host, unprompted. Let me rephrase that: This was the first time I had to prompt her to be a host. But it was all good; after all, in a place like that, one (kid) would not really need much urging to join in!

Soon, both of these friends were present. And since both didn’t know each other, they were demanding the attention of Caitlin.

While Caitlin was quite happy following either one of them, the other was starting to feel neglected in that Caitlin either didn’t heed her plea to “come over here..” or didn’t hear her at all. When she played with school friend, the other was feeling left out and cried. So when we asked Caitlin to also include the other, somehow the first one then became somewhat left out too. Caitlin, in all this time, was busy accommodating one or the other!

So the tears were flowing, complaints being raised with the mummies, and Caitlin seemingly needed coaching.

But even I was at a loss somewhat. Naturally I was thinking in adult-mode: Can’t we all just join in and (learn to) get along? Hot Mummee and I were saying things to all 3 girls to try and pacify and solve the “issue”. “Why don’t you include the other…”, “Why don’t all 3 of you play together…”, “.. they don’t know each other, so you (Caitlin) have to try and get them to play together….”

While it is somewhat amusing to see this little dilemma, how would you have settled this triangle?? :)

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Posted in A father's POV, A toddler's POV, Adventures, Caitlin the heiress, milestones, Parenting musing, Parenting rules

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Christmas = toys, no matter what your parenting style is!

Posted on 19 December, 2008
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This gallery contains 5 photos.

‘Tis the silly season again. Frantic people cracking their heads over what to buy who which… Local shopping malls would be jam packed with shoppers; it also helps, of course, that in Malaysia we are already having sales on, making … Continue reading →

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Adding some colours to this blog!

Posted on 12 December, 2008

Clips and memories from recent events…

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Damaged checked-in car seat :(

Posted on 10 December, 2008

As you know, it’s regulations in Australia to have your child seated in a proper car seat while in the car. So since my friends in Adelaide either don’t have a spare one to loan me, or that their kids … Continue reading →

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My first beach visit!

Posted on 6 December, 2008

So here we are in Adelaide, Australia. Daddee had promised me that he’d bring me to a beach, since I have never been to one before, ever. Daddee’s uni friend Uncle Al was kind enough to bring us to Seacliff … Continue reading →

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Another flight with a toddler!

Posted on 2 December, 2008 | 2 Comments

So some of you know that I had been planning this trip for a while. After all, when you have an annual privilege like this from work, it’d be a waste not to use it, wouldn’t it? :)

So a few months ago I asked Hot Mummee where we should go with these free tickets. “Gotta save money lah, impending recession, you know..”

The long and short of it? I went ahead with the planning without her. I decided to bring Caitlin along to Adelaide, where I went to uni, where Hot Mummee wouldn’t be interested in coming anyway, and where (thus, since it was only going to be an adult and a half) I was able to crash at a uni friend’s house. Yes recession may be coming, but this trip is looking pretty cheap!

So, last night we set out for the flight. This was all quite familiar to Caitlin already, after having flown to Australia twice before already, within weeks of her 2nd and 3rd birthdays, and now her 4th birthday!

The train ride was fun, as expected. We didn’t have that much time in the terminal to run around like the last time, due to pretty-ok-thus-little-buffer-time planning during that evening.

As soon as we got on the plane Caitlin was asking for the headphones already! “I wanna watch Bob the Builder!” She was quite right, Bob the Builder was listed as one of the program on the kids channel. But it was only 1 episode. In the end, she ended up watching Finding Nemo, twice.

Which also means that she didn’t actually sleep that much. I guess a little like her Daddee, she was trying to savour every moment of the holiday by staying awake as much as possible. But being an overnight flight, this wasn’t something I had wanted, because it will mean that we’d be wasting the following fullday trying to recuperate from the lack of sleep. And I had forgotten to ensure that she didn’t have her afternoon nap the afternoon of the overnight flight.

Which was what we ended up doing, because Caitlin only managed about 3 hours sleep, and I even less. But you wouldn’t know it if you saw her in the Adelaide international airport. She was jumping and running and giggling all the way!

Just as well for the time difference. She knocked out at her usual Malaysian afternoon nap time, which was around late morning Adelaide time. So, come night time, she’d be adjusted to sane local sleeping times.

Which she is now asleep soundly as I type…

Tonight, with my uni friend we went to Fasta Pasta. Those of you who thought this sounds familiar is because these are the same guys who ventured into Malaysia at Ikano years ago. It’s quite a big franchise here in South Australia, and the menu is still the way I liked it when I was at uni here over a decade ago….

So, after spending a day here, these are the things I forgot to bring! (ie, as of today!)

  • Caitlin’s hairbrush!
  • Clothes for ME to sleep in!
  • Malaysian driver’s license! I am so used to the fact that it’s incorporated into our MyKad that I forgot to bring the “actual” one..

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Posted in A father's POV, A toddler's POV, Adventures, Caitlin the heiress, Parenting musing, Simple pleasures

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What would you do if you lost your toddler?

Posted on 2 December, 2008 | 3 Comments

I took Caitlin for the new animation movie, Bolt; no I didn’t lose her in the mall, despite the title of this post.

I should have known, being on a Sunday that the chance was slim in getting tickets. It was after all the first weekend of its screening. In the end, to manage her disappointment, we “settled” for Madagascar 2. I think she enjoyed it; despite asking “Is it finished yet?” some 5 times. I think she was more determined to sit through the whole movie than to enjoy the story- we kept saying how you shouldn’t leave the cinema before the end of the movie, like what she did during her first movie experience with Wall-E.

So anyway.

I parked at The Gardens, we walked briskly to get to the top floor of Midvalley. At The Gardens, initially I could hear someone speaking very loudly at the other end of the mall. I had thought it was just a kid making repeated noises. As we walked toward the middle of the mall, the voice was also coming closer. I realised the repeated “noise” was “Michael…. MICHAEL….” and it was coming from a lady.

She was pushing a stroller. Beside her was a boy walking along; no, he was actually running to stay beside his mum.

She was looking very very worried.

“MICHAEL! MICHAEL!……”

I couldn’t stay around to see what was going on next; after all we were (also) in a hurry. I went down the escalators at the middle of the mall, looking up to see them pass the top of it onward to the other end of the mall.

It dawned on me what was going on. The lady and the boy passed another party, probably Sunday shoppers too; gesturing to other probable shoppers out of our sight. A small person, nee high.

Caitlin was also looking, probably only because of the noise. I asked if she could guess what was going on (I have started to ask her to assess situations, lately).

I don’t think she could; she said she didn’t know. I told her what I thought was likely going on…

What would you do if you had lost your toddler in similar way?

What “survival skills” would you teach your child to tackle such an incident?

I had a similar experience myself before I started going to school, so many years ago. It was a beach outing and I had wandered off “base” so far that I lost where we “camped” on the beach. You can imagine the horror when my family couldn’t find me, at the beach.

The long and short of it is- somehow I had memorised (I can’t recall how or who made me) my dad’s car registration plate. That’s all I could offer the cops, who later found it in the parking lot, and placed me on it waiting for someone to claim me.

In this day and age, similarly I guess a child could be made to memorise mobile phone numbers…

What else?

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Posted in A father's POV, A toddler's POV, Caitlin the heiress, Education, Parenting rules

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