No More Eggs?

Hubby-jr’s obsession with Baby M jogged to memory a conversation we had a few months ago.

One fateful night during their (my kiddos) nightly prayer, I asked Hubby-jr to pray that God would bless someone close to us with a baby.

Never in a million years would I have thought such a request would take an unexpected turn.

“How about you mommy? Do you want to have another baby?” asked Hubby-jr earnestly.

Holy smokes, where did that come from?! After blinking for seconds, I just had to clarify,

“You want mommy to have another baby?”

Hubby-jr nodded somewhat too eagerly for my liking, and looked at me with such hopeful eyes too. I looked to hubby hoping he’d interject right then to save me but dear ol’ daddy-o was just sitting there with ‘I-can’t-wait-to-see-what-she-says’ look on his face! Plus I was half suspecting that he hoped my son would nudge me into a certain direction.

“Would you want a di-di (little brother) or mei-mei (little sister)?”

I asked just to check if he really understood the implication of me having another baby. Hoping that he’d realise he wouldn’t want another sibling in the family.

BUT I was wrong,

“Di-di!” he replied enthusiastically.

Sigh. I had to let him down gently. So I said,

“I’m sorry darling but mommy is not going to have anymore babies.”

I We I We decided that we’d stop at two, children, having children that is. Well it was more of, I decided and hubby went along with my decision but he’d be more than happy if I decided otherwise.

I thought that would end the discussion but no. Hubby-jr then asked,

“Mommy, is it because you have no more eggs inside of you?”

What?! My dear son stumped me for the second time that night. Eggs in me? How did he know? Was it from our previous conversations? I could only remember this episode. Anyway, I said,

“No, I still have eggs but I’m not going to have another baby. The egg will only become a seed or baby when…, when…”

“Mommy and I decided we’re not having anymore babies. So we are just not going to have another baby, ok? But we are very blessed to have you and mei-mei and we love you both very much. Now can you please say pray?” Hubby finally saved me. Phew! That was close. Way too close.

But just so you know, I’ve since revisited the baby making thingy with my son. I just read him the book “Amazing You!: Getting Smart About Your Private Parts”, again and realised that was where he learnt about eggs. Here’s an excerpt from the book.

When a man and a woman love each other (I added, “they get married”) and decide that they want to have a baby, a man’s sperm joins with a woman’s egg. From the egg and sperm, a baby will grow.

And that is that. And somehow that was (is?) enough to satisfy Hubby-jr’s curiousity (actually he was more curious about the other stuff in the book). AND (last but not least) he has NOT asked me for another baby since. PHEW!

My Son’s New Love

This is hubby-jr’s new love, a little baby boy, his cousin. I shall call him Baby M.

Baby M is almost 3 months old (I think) and Hubby-jr ADORES him! The very moment Baby M appears in church on Sundays, he’d zoom away from us to sit with him. He’d stroke his head, smell him and give him lots of kisses. It’s very, very amusing to watch.

And poor whoever is babysitting Baby M that Sunday as Hubby-jr will bombard her with loads of questions. “Can Baby M walk?”, “Does Baby M like me?”, “Can Baby M sit up?”, “Can he talk?” and tons of other questions. He’d also help feed the baby by holding the milk bottle. He was so thrilled when Baby M grasped his finger with his tiny hands and he simply loves to carry and hug the baby.

This whole new love thingy caught hubby and I by surprise. This is NOT the first baby he has seen. There has been a few new babies at our church this year alone. And he has never liked any soft toys, never laid a hand on one or a doll and is just totally very “boy”. He’s also not very “nurturing” with his sister… but somehow he just took to Baby M.

“I love Baby M, mommy.” He’s told me many times.

Here’s another couple of pictures of him and Baby M. Note the delight on my son’s face.

Train First Child Well

Little Missy drank her morning and night milk from a cup for the first time last Saturday. At her request mind you. She was thrilled when I bought the cup of her choice the day before. “Now you can drink your milk from a cup, just like kor-kor (big brother),” I psyched told her.

Nice Minnie Mouse cup, isn’t it? My kids are huge Mickey Mouse (the new version of the show) fans. Ok, well technically I didn’t buy the cup as it was a freebie banded to two tubes of Darlie toothpaste BUT I did buy the toothpaste just so she could have her cup. And of course we had to buy another one (of different design) for Hubby-jr…

Anyhoo, with my no.2 most if not all transitions have been a breeze. Little Missy started feeding herself at 2+ (Hubby-jr at 4+). She moved from sleeping in her playpen to a bed not only fuss free but with much excitement (Hubby-jr took some coaxing and a few days) and now ditching a sort of milk bottle to a cup (it took a lot of effort to get Hubby-jr off the bottle!)

Little Missy also goes to pee in the toilet on her own and washes her own hands. In fact most of the time she’d get upset if I try to help. She wants to be independent, to do things like “big kids”, just like kor-kor.

Yes I do think in part it is a result of her personality (read bossy and strong willed). But modeling Hubby-jr’s actions/habits is also a large contributing factor. And from chatting with a lot of fellow moms, wanting to do what the older sibling does is not unique to Little Missy. It is the norm.

A long time ago, someone did say these words to me of which I am discovering to be true.

“Train your no.1 well and it will be easier with the no.2″

I am not saying no.2 will naturally be an easier child to handle. Oh NOoooo! In so many ways Little Missy is a much bigger challenge (again, read bossy, strong willed but that’s a whole other story!). Each child is so different.

BUT

All my effort in training Hubby-jr (whatever I could) is paying off. In some areas as I mentioned above I do not have to train Little Missy, she just models after her brother. For that I am extremely grateful. Parenting is tough enough as it is and anything, ANYTHING that eases the process, however minutely, helps.

Swinging Around

While Little Missy chose to cycle at the park this was Hubby-jr’s preferred “vehicle”.

Yes, it’s a swing car. He had to manouver this to and from a park about 10-15 mins walk from our house. And at the park he “drove” around for about 30mins or more! By driving I mean alternating between swinging his arms left and right and pushing with both his feet. The park is a little hilly (slope-y?), so he had have some lovely cruises zooms down a long slope.

These days he has reverted to… nope not his skate scooter, nope not his bicycle… but another swing car! His old blue one. It doesn’t matter to him that most of his friends are cycling around. For now he’d rather just swing or push about whenever he is outdoors.

P/S: This yellow swing car was someone else’s castaway we found and picked up at the foot of our block. In fact we picked up two, this and a red one.

Biker In The Making?

Then.

I posted this on 30 April 2008.

Now!

Fierce huh? And yes, this time she can cycle. Actually she learnt to paddle shortly after I took the first photo.

My girl, the biker to be? One more thing for her daddy dearest to worry about.

Evergreen fun

Since June (this year) we’ve visited Pasir Ris Park twice. Before that we hadn’t for about 2 months. So when we re-visited this (one of) our favourite place(s) we were surprised to find a very fun development.

No, it is not a new play structure. On the contrary, it is an old game on one of their existing structures. An old game we never thought of till someone else did during our non-visiting months. And from what we observed seems to be the current fad there.

Sliding down this “hill” (see pic below) on a piece of cardboard is what I’m talking about.

Yup, instead of going down the steel slide the kids were having a ball of a time sliding down a piece of cardboard on the artificial grass beside it. The first time we discovered a group of children doing this, some of them were nice enough to give Hubby-jr and Little Missy pieces of cardboard to join in the fun. The second time we went prepared with our own (picked from 7-11 near our house!)

Here is honestly the best shot I have of the fun.

Hubby and I couldn’t resist joining in too! Albeit for a shorter period. Climbing up the slope repeatedly for that few seconds of thrill was quite tiring. But the kids could go on like forever… if not for the sun going down on us we wouldn’t have been able to leave the park!

So the next time you decide to go to Pasir Ris Park don’t forget to bring some cardboard pieces for everyone.

Dream Kitchen

One of my favourite websites of which I visit frequently is Ikea Hacker. It features all sorts of home projects from all over the world using Ikea stuff. Some of the projects are like, WOW! Is that really Ikea furniture?!

Lately Ikea Hacker has been posting various play kitchen projects which are Simply Fabulous. Check these out!! Can you believe that each of them were self made? (Read: not bought off the shelf from a toyshop.) Remarkable isn’t it? Click on the pictures for the links.

How I wish someone would make one for me my little girl.

By the way if you like design or decor stuff, another website I recently discovered (from a link from one of the posts above) is ohdeedoh. I just love to head there and ogle.

P/S: I’ve been REALLY busy the last month, hence the silence but I’m back and will be posting something each week.

A Brief Glimpse of Our Holiday

As promised here’s some photos of our trip to Melbourne. (For some of you, you’d have seen most of these on facebook.)

Autumn in Melbourne. Taken at Skyhigh, Mt Dandenong.

The Giant's Chair at Skyhigh, Mt Dandenong.

Hubby-jr and his cousin (my cousin's son). His father is Danish.

Yup, my kids' Danish uncle.

Look! A maple leaf!

A 3-Aussie-dollar train ride at the Carribean Market that made my kids very happy. Yes, that's me adjusting my spectacles.

I’m Back

Hello, hello… hello! I’m finally back. I returned to Singapore last Wednesday, in body anyway. My spirit however was fighting reality. It took me another 2 days to recover from jetlag and the general lack of sleep I had during our holiday. It’s a sign of the loss of youth many moons ago, I can only sleep well on my own bed. Sigh. After which I had to face… laundry and unpacking! Aaargh. It was not pleasant AT ALL. “Where did I use to put these stuff anyway?! AND where was I going to put all these new ones?!!”

BUT that was WAS. NOW I am almost back to “normal”. Back to my daily life.

Part of me is sad, the other part relieved.

It was great being away, far away in a totally different environment (I highly recommend it). We were in Melbourne, Australia. Besides enjoying family time, catching up with loved ones (we stayed with my cousin), exploring new places, shopping and so on, for me it was also wonderful to be taken away from the daily little worries. I never realised how easy it is to get sucked into our little worlds and be so consumed by them. Being away helped put somethings into perspective and gave me a much needed breather. No must-do lists, and no obligations to fulfill for 16 whole days. It was simply marvellous.

On the flip side,

I missed my space and my bed. Imagine my family of four living with my cousin’s family of three. Even though her house was quite big, I felt my loss of personal space. There was some place I could retreat to at night but it wasn’t the same as home. I also found going out EVERYDAY rather tiring, especially with kids in tow.

SO,

While I definitely absolutely LOVED our holiday, I am glad to be back home. I am. Glad.

I’ll post some photos next time okay? Now it is time for me to sleeeeeep. In my bed. Sweet!

Break

Dear all, I’m taking a two week (plus a few more days) blogging break. We’re off on a family holiday. Woo Hoo!! I should be back with a post before the end of the month.