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Those of you invited, or know people who are invited, please don’t disclose this. It is my parents’ 50th anniversary this year, and also a joint celebration for my mum’s birthday. But my dad doesn’t want people to know these. … Continue reading
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?? 
Posted in A father's POV, A toddler's POV, Adventures, Caitlin the heiress, milestones, Parenting musing, Parenting rules
Tagged birthday, etiquette, friends, gym, party, school, social
Clips and memories from recent events…
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
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
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!)
As you know Caitlin enjoys being picked up from school by her favourite human on Earth (ahem).
So since I had the day off work (actually I had taken the whole week off since I have a load of annual leave left), and also that our department had organised a lunch party, I thought to pick Caitlin up from school and head on over to the office party with her in tow, to show her the place where I work.
The party was a combined Raya celebrations as well as farewell for a staff. But little did I know that there was also gonna be performances by my peers. Some singing, some dancing, some fashion show parade.
We arrived about 50 minutes after the party started- Caitlin’s school day only ended 30min after the scheduled start of the party. By then there were thank-you speeches already by my unit head, and soon followed by performances.
The ladies in the unit danced, sang self-written rhymes to tease the farewell staff. Staff were also requested to come “dressed up”, so there were also fashion / catwalk parades. In good sportsmanship, when my peers saw me walking in with Caitlin, I was also requested to parade under the “Daddy with daughter” category. Caitlin wasn’t too appreciative of that, but she obliged since I was holding her hand. We did a walk, I wanted to twirl her but she wasn’t really in the mood, and we walked back to where we were hiding.
Soon after, lunch was served. It was only then that she started coming out of her shell, starting to respond and then started talking to the adults in my office. It was afterwards that I found out that she even volunteered info- that she spoke first instead of just responding, about her day in school, with one of the ladies here…
Hmm I wonder if it was ‘cos food was being served that she opened up….
So now she has seen “Daddee’s office”. Complete with dancing ladies, singing ladies, ladies winning (small) awards for being best-dressed, a big table full of food with tomato rice, not-spicy curry dishes, cakes, “crackers” (she didn’t know they were called papadums), and Playhouse Disney (website) on Daddee’s work laptop.
Talk about misconceptions about the adult working life from an early age!
