Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

Kids love to be involved. To be a part of something important. To contribute.

And I think Christmas is one perfect time for us parents to get our kids involved in ‘making’ the cards and posting them out or personally giving the cards to their friends.

In the end, even if their ‘artwork’ ends up not looking anything close to being ‘presentable enough to be given to someone’ (read: will be kept by Mommy instead), I think that’s okay too because they at least had fun making, experimenting and creating something together with us.

Anyway, here are some shots of the kids busily stamping, cutting, scribbling, colouring, writing and drawing.

Someone once said to me: if your kid eats well, your battle is ‘half won’.

And I guess that’s because each kid generally has about four mealtimes a day (breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner). And if each mealtime is a big struggle, you can imagine the amount of ‘stress’ it puts on the mom!

Well. I’d like to add onto the phrase though.

I would say: if your kid eats well, drinks his milk well and sleeps well, then consider yourself REALLY blessed because you’ve won 75% of the daily battle!

Now that I have Vai, I can look back and appreciate how relatively ‘easy’ Anya was when she’s around his age. She’d sit and eat whatever I served without much fuss. Her mealtimes were naturally messy too when she’s learning how to self-feed, BUT it’s nothing compared to Vai’s mealtime mess.

[Click here for tips to cope with messy eaters]

Weaning her off breastfeeding wasn’t much of a struggle as well and she accepted formula and bottlefeeding since she’s about eleven months old (though she’d only want to drink about 120 – 150ml, max. each time).

Falling asleep also wasn’t much of a problem. She could fall sleep by herself, anywhere, regardless of the amount of noise at the time.

I guess since I’ve been blessed with such ‘good days and months’ with Anya, it simply is time for me to see a more ‘realistic’ picture of a ‘real’ kid.

I’ve got to say, when it comes to eating, drinking and sleeping, Vai is pretty much the opposite of his sister!

He’s a light sleeper who can easily be woken up by loud noises (unless he’s really sleepy, he’d then be completely knocked out). During the day he can force himself to not fall asleep unless he’s breastfed. He hardly ever falls asleep by himself while on the pram (since birth, it only happened three times!)

He DISLIKES bottlefeeding. And right now, getting him to drink formula from his bottle will involve kicking, screaming, crying and spitting. And so I naturally stop giving him the bottle altogether.

[I’ve tried letting him drink with straws, spouts, spoon, everything. He sometimes is okay with these, but he’d drink VERY little, like 20ml!]

Ah. So as you can imagine, weaning him off breastfeeding does get pretty difficult. So much so that I now just breastfeed him on demand and not think about weaning him just yet.

Now, when it comes to eating, since he started his solids at 5.5 months old, his mealtimes have always been, … err should I say, more challenging that the norm? (read: it can involve quite a bit of food rejection)

Right now, at 15.5 months, he’d always want to self-feed or move his food from one bowl to ‘another place’, which can basically mean: the babychair table! (he’d then pick his food off the table and eat it)

And so yes, as much as I’d love to teach him some table manners on how-to-eat-more-neatly, it’s pretty close to impossible right now.

You know, when I see other people’s kids who eat, drink or fall asleep really easily, I honestly just feel so happy for them.

But I somehow don’t expect Vai to be like his sister or other ‘easier’ kids though, because I feel it’s just not fair on him. He’s an individual and he’s created uniquely by God. I do realise too that he’s blessed with many positive qualities.

I guess I just at times wonder if the day – when mealtimes are easier and drinking his formula involves minimal fuss – will ever come.

PS: If you have similar experiences with your kid, I’d love to hear about it! Do things get better as they grow older?

The joy and festivity of the ‘Christmas season’ is practically known by the whole world.

But have you ever wondered about what its ‘Christmas Story’ is all about? And most importantly, how is it related to you and me?

If you’re in Singapore, I’m sincerely inviting you to come and attend this upcoming Sunday event, held at Singapore Polytechnic Convention Centre, just next to Dover MRT.

It’s held in three languages over two sessions:

Indonesian: 4pm

Mandarin, with English translation: 7.30pm

With all the traditional gift-giving and exchanging in the month of December, this invitation is my gift to you all this Christmas.

And my sincere hope is that when you come, you gain a true understanding of the touching Christmas story and see for yourself the greatest gift you can ever receive!

For their very first time, the kids attended a ‘concert’, specially meant for little ones below six years old, performed by the Singapore Symphony Orchestra!

And the conductor, Peter Moore, he’s EXCELLENT! Very interactive and lively. He’s great with kids! Stories were told, silly games were played and classical music was involved throughout! It was really nice!

All four of us went together with a few other friends and their kids (Thanks to our friend, Astrid, who quickly went online and bought the tickets for all of us. Apparently, once they made the ticket sales available online, all were sold out within hours!)

[Btw, the concert lasted for about an hour and it’s free for kids below 2 years old. Our tickets cost $20 each]

Now. The really interesting bit.

Towards the end of the concert, they actually chose a boy and a girl to be up on the stage and CONDUCT the whole orchestra. And far beyond what I could ever imagine, Anya somehow made it (past the really packed crowd of adults and kids in front of the hall!) and was there on the stage!

I mean, it was ANYA. She who at the beginning of the concert preferred to sit with us (and not join the rest of the kids who’re allowed to sit at the front of the hall) because she’s afraid she’d get lost!

And now she went to the front all alone? (while we all sat at the back of the hall). The thought of her freaking out in the last minute honestly did cross my mind (as I busily videotaped the whole ‘precious moments’). But NO, she bravely went ahead and tapped the baton in front of the orchestra.

Knowing her rather introvert character, and looking at what she’s actually doing in front of a hall full of people at the time, I was glowing with pride inside. It was such a huge leap for her!

[Oh, she received Peter Moore’s music book for kids and his CD too as a gift!]

Overall it was a great musical experience for everyone. Really enjoyable. The kids got to see the instruments up close and learn to appreciate the beauty of classical music too.

Will definitely want to go again next year!

Click here to view the clip on my youtube!

PS: The blurry photo of Anya as the conductor was taken from my video footage.

Okay. I did something silly today, and got ourselves … well, locked outside our own home!

Left the house together with Wilson this morning, took a taxi together, then went our separate ways. And when the kids and I got back home in the afternoon, everyone stood in front of the door, Mom checked and groped AND realised she did NOT bring her set of keys!

Hmpf.

And so we went around our neighbourhood for a good FOUR AND A HALF hours, waiting for Wilson to finish his meetings and deliver his deadlines.

Added to all this, my mobile phone’s battery was flat! And so I had to call him from public phones.

Good thing I got my camera with me! So at least I’ve got something interesting to do with the kids!

Anyway.

Here’re some of the things we did during those few hours outside.

We had a typical Singaporean breakfast (kaya toast, half-boiled eggs and tea with milk), at FOUR in the afternoon.

Anya and I scribbled and played guessing games (while Vai napped).

Btw, those are some of her drawings. See if you can guess what animals she drew. Heh.

The kids took turns inserting a ten-cent coin into the public phone. They ran around the open field near the markets. They got busy playing on those kiddy rides too (with no coins inserted).

My feet were pretty sore from standing a lot. And while waiting for Wilson to reach home, we all sat just outside our home! (err… Vai kind of rolled on the floor too!)

Ah.

Let’s just say that forgetting to bring your keys is not really a nice experience.

Wouldn’t really recommend it anyone.

PS: The next day, someone told me that I should’ve just gone to my friend’s home nearby. And WHY didn’t I think of THAT!

Oh, btw, according to Anya that was a scribbled picture of a bird on a nest and an elephant. Did you guess it right? *smile*

Now that it’s all over (I hope!), I’ll write and share a little bit of what happened last week. Or to be exact, from Wednesday to Sunday.

It all started last Wednesday morning when Vai just suddenly was NOT interested in ANY meals. I mean, he’d look away and completely REFUSE to open his mouth. He’d SCREAM and CRY whenever I insisted.

And if I somehow managed to get some food (however fresh, soft, tender or yummy) into his mouth, he’d spit it out immediately, OR kept it in his mouth, un-chewed, and let it DRIP slowly out of his mouth soon after.

Mealtimes were such a struggle! (for both of us, I guess).

And frankly, I’ve lost count of the many different approaches I’ve tried, just to get him to eat something.

Over the five days (wed – sun), the total amount of food that went into his tummy was closely equivalent to the amount he’d usually eat in 1.5 days! It was really bad.

Over those five days, his meal portion would be something like:

Breakfast: boiled egg (half of it)
Lunch: 10 – 15 pieces of ONLY green peas!
Afternoon tea: two small cubes of papaya
Dinner: two spoonfuls of rice and vegie

The only thing that he really welcomed was breastmilk! (He completely refused formula too). Throughout the day AND at night, he asked to be breastfed SO often that I decided to pop an extra dose of my usual multi-vitamin!

He’d wake up crying at night pretty frequently and became more clingy.

He came down with a rather high fever (over 39 deg Celsius) last wednesday too. After I gave him some paracetamol, twice, once in the evening and another the next morning, he was completely okay.

And oh, the drooling! It was SO excessive that at times it’d just drip down like a water tap that wasn’t properly turned off!

The whole going-hungry thing got slightly better on Sunday evening. AND, on monday morning he was completely back to normal. He even asked for food, saying ‘Mum-mum…’ pretty often throughout the day.

Formula was still not well received (but wasn’t as bad as last week!). The drooling went back to normal too!

Really. It was just too weird!

And my verdict: it’s his teething phase!

Now, since last Monday, he’s eating well again. Err… mealtimes are still VERY messy though because he strongly insists on self-feeding, using his hands, a spoon and/or a fork, moving his food from one bowl to another!

[And so I now spread out sheets of newspaper below his babychair. It makes cleaning up after his super-messy mealtimes so much better!]

Ah. I’m just happy he’s eating and getting the nutrients he needs again.

PS: [top photo] Vai’s finishing up his pasta earlier today (and judging from the amount of mess on the table, he just started his meal NOT that long ago).

Nowadays, whenever he’s having pasta or noodles, he’d usually eat about 70% of it all by himself. The mess goes all over though. Including his face, arms, legs, hair, you name it.