Tag Archives: toddler

Lazy Sunday afternoon..

Caleb:
Is making a lot of “noise” now, with..

buh-bye;

Grr-grr- “go-go” is what is uttered whenever we are ready to go out. Now he’s the one telling us we should go out.

Ma’am-mee (nope, still not calling Daddee);

circa and dar (“circle” and “star”, when Daddee was doodling with him);

tonne-ner whenever we enter a tunnel, or even under overhead bridges that remotely resemble anything undercover;

Runs around in circles of present-moment’s object of desire on the floor- a toy, a piece of paper, etc.

Caitlin:
She was pretty proud that she could rubber-band tie her rolled up doodling (“treasure map”) with a double twirl all by herself.

Caitlin’s cough and sniffles is getting better; thank goodness there’s no fever otherwise I’d be bringing her straight to a doctor, for obvious reasons of what’s in the air these days.

It’s mid afternoon. I think we’ll grr-grr to Midvalley using the tonne-ner parking, since really there’s nothing to do otherwise at home :)

Caleb at 17 months

I have mentioned about his shifty eyes, looking at Daddee funny with an attitude, when he was only 6 months old.

Now he doesn’t look at me when I tell him off.

He’d sometimes take forever to finish his bottle of milk. 3/4 through and he’d stop, get off the sofa, wanders around for whatever / whoever. He’d look for HM, his jie-jie, or just because. He’d walk to walls and slap it. He’d come over and put his head on your lap and then rubs his face (nose) on it too, hands free.

Sometimes he’d stop the milk with “nn-more” accompanied by the “finished” hand gesture, as if you’d believe that the 3/4 bottle is empty; and proceed to get off the sofa.

Just because he can walk. At 17 months he is walking around, screaming demanding for stuff, stuff his jie-jie has just because she is holding it, screaming because his jie-jien snatches it back, screaming just because he has a voice. He’d also mumble. Sometimes imitating words he’d immediately heard uttered by the adults around him, sometimes it’s his own words that he’d used before, like that dah-den that seems to me to describe anything and everything in his universe.

I’d go over, carry him back to the sofa, sit him down and get down to his eye level, grunting “Finish your naan-naan!”

He’d look past me. At the tv behind me, at the wall behind me, at the shelf behind me. Just not at me. He’d move his head slightly, but it’s usually just the use of his eyes, no need wasting energy moving the head. No, don’t make eye-contact with Daddee, let’s drive him crazy a bit more. Ignore the bugger.

* Now I know what my mum went through, getting me to sit down and finish whatever it was I was supposed to do! And Caleb is not even 2 yet!

I was gonna say “It has begun”.. but you know it had already begun even before he turned 1! Ugh!

First day back at school

You can just hear the moans from all the kids around Malaysia this Monday morning, Caitlin’s included.

I had taken June 8, 9, and 10 off to do something with her, those days (already) being the 2nd week of her 2-week school break. Due to some urgency of needing to quickly setup some stock trading accounts, Hot Mummee and I, instead, were in Singapore on Monday and Tuesday. Thinking I could then make it up to Caitlin on Wednesday, she developed a fever. Luckily by Thursday it had subsided, and Friday she was fine.

So on Saturday, we all went up to the Genting Highlands again, seeing as it was gonna only be a daytrip to anywhere at all. We did initially think about going away a few days… but logistics with a 1-year old and other factors kinda dampened that spirit!

Naturally, this was already the second time we took Caitlin there (her 3rd visit, actually. First one was when Yee-Yee was in town when she was probably 2+). She was already gearing to ride that “up-down”up-down” ride again. But either this Daddee was getting a bit old and slow or that this Daddee through the years have become wiser (at least about the weather!) that I decided we should try out the indoor theme park instead. :)

Her first reactions from only 2 rides “Why is this so slow??” Daddee is kinda glad that Caitlin has his genes. HM’s not into rides and would very likely not join us when the kids are in their teens to venture on rollercoasters- we no doubt we would be “graduating” to bigger and better rides as the kids grow!

Anyway, it did rain outside, so it was just as well we were indoors. Really, the only 2 rides that I could tell she liked were one that Caitlin only just qualified for (otherwise she would be too tall!)- one that is basically a train of cars that looped around a very minor coaster-like track; and the monorail, which looped outside/outdoors; allowing us to confirm that it did indeed rain.

This visit however, we did also bring Caleb along. But he had only just hung with HM and Grandma and Grandpa; only Caitlin and I went to the theme park. HM’s justification would be that it would be too expensive for so many people to go; but it really because she wants to enjoy the buffet at the cafe :) Besides, someone had to watch over Caleb anyway, who incidentally was apparently sleeping the whole time the adults were munching away at the food!

Thinking this was still something of a waste of school holidays, Sunday afternoon, even if it was really just a simple dinner and the stroll to get some Burger King (!) takeaway for HM, I still brought Caitlin out to The Gardens, as a small treat. We shared a meatball spaghetti thingy from Italiannies :) Since she again didn’t nap in the afternoon, I was quite happy that she knocked off between 9:30 to 10pm last night, all ready for school

So then, back to topic.

Therefore, this morning as you can imagine, it was all moans and groans. Having been one myself oh-s0-many decades ago, I sympathised with her and sat with her for a while, watching her stretch, rub her eyes, complain.

I don’t wanna go to schooooooooooool….

I want Daddee to stay with meeeee……

I don’t wanna go to schooooooooooool…..

This was going on all the way to just before the front of her school. Being slightly behind schedule due to traffic (after all everyone’s going back to school too), I opted to drop her off at school first instead of Caleb at Grandma’s first.

Opened the door for her, helped her with her backpack, knelt down to her level. got my usual kiss, gave her mine, and soon she was trotting off to school again, pony-tail swinging side to side. The usual sight.

I hope her spirit is indeed revived, as I promised her it will when she sees her schoolfriends again this morning.

This is/was the circus that's playing now

No photos please!

I gotta check the old camera again; I actually think Caitlin took this shot!

Connection between siblings, on a beanbag?

“Back in the day” when I was single and first started out having my own (bachelor’s) pad, I went and got myself a beanbag- a double seater beanbag, for bringing dates home, cook them dinner, maybe get them to watch … Continue reading

Spoke too soon…

Only a few days after that last post on how Caleb is starting to sleep through the night, he started (again) to not be so.

Why does he wake? Just because.

Just because I made a little noise.
Just because Caitlin needs to go pee.
Just because I shifted in my bed.
Just because he shifted in his bed.
Just because.

And he wails. Lucky for me HM is the one who wakes to sooth him back to sleep, with some effort too mind you.

So in that time, I am woken, Caitlin is woken. (HM’s work hours are a little flexible in that she doesn’t have to be in the office very early).

And we both suffer from lack of sleep the next day. I can cope with this with drug laced beverages, but feedback from Teacher Rachel is that Caitlin either dozes off in class, or is moody and thus teary I-wanna-go-home.

Thus, we (mainly I) have to decide for both of us what to trade-off in order to bring forward bedtime.


My time surfing the web and catching up on online reading
vs
Caitlin’s Playhouse Disney time
vs
My time reading with Caitlin
vs
Caitlin’s revision or practising Mandarin conversations with me
vs
Daddee’s recent thinking-about hitting the treadmill early in the mornings

Sigh…..

Another flight with a toddler!

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..