The lions

lions are very dangerous anlems they can kill an tiger.

Nursery 2

This is his 3rd year of school and he has just started his Nursery (N2). We have suffered the crying-on-the-first-day-of-school phase 2 years ago when we have decided to enrol him in the childcare. It turned out to be disaster. He did not like it at all and refused to go to the school. We did not know what to do because he was too young to go to Nursery then.

Last year, he has reached the age for pre-nursery, a 2-hour play group in the neighbourhood school, so we enrolled him and hope things to turn out fine. Better than expected, he enjoys school since then.

Today, it is his first day of Nursery. He was so excited when we prepared for his stationaries, school bag, new shoes, new socks. He is actually looking forward to it.

But me, being a lousy mom, actually did not know that his class ended 1.5 hours earlier then usual until his teacher called. Arghh, I feel so bad about it. He just asked me inoocently if I have forgotten.

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I always believe that there is no child who doesn't love their parents, but I do not agree otherwise. If you parents don't love you or abandon you, it is their fault. If your child(ren) don't love you, it is clearly your failure.

A child comes to this world, counting on you and living on your mercy until he/she is independant. If you don't feed him/her for few days, he/she will die. I feel really angry when I see news like a helpless child being tortured by parents.

It makes me think when I see news about how an old man is abandoned by all his children and leaving alone in a messy little flat or by the street. This old man has a whole life to decide how he wants to live, is it his children's fault that he is living like that now?

I don't know how will my own child treat me when I am old and helpless one day, but I hope to do my best as a parent because I still belive no child in this world will not love his/her parents if they are loved.

The terrible two

Preston is turning 2 years old on the 25th. He will be going to the childcare tomorrow for the first time. This is a very difficult decision for me as I remember the first time we had to hand him over to the baby sitter when he was 3 months old. It was like you don't know what is going to happen to him, can he adjust well to the new environment? Will the caregiver/people around him be treating him well? I guess I just have to let go because it is part of life, and you can't be protecting him for life, and he won't want that too.

He has really good communication skills by now. He can form a complete sentence using multiple verbs and nouns, for instance, "公公，洗康的毛巾“（grandpa, wash kang's hanky) or ”姨姨弄妈妈的眼睛“（auntie is doing something on mama's eyes, when a friend was perming my eyelashes for me). However, he just refuses to speak in English.

He understands almost everything that is being told to him, therefore if you want him to do/not to do something, he will demand a valid reason. He will be unhappy and will not do it if the reason is some made up crap like our parents used to tell us, like the police is going to catch you for this or that. He just knows. He has very strong opinions about things now.

He will think of ways to escape from any punishment for the things he has done wrong. For example there was once, he was lying on the kitchen's floor, my mom told me about it, so I took the cane to threaten him to get up. He looked at me and laughed, like I wasn't serious, I told him if he didn't get up, I am going to whack him. He got up and fly kiss me for twice calmly like nothing has happened. What else can I do to him?

I just hope that he will be alright at the childcare centre tomorrow.

ka ka lai liao (ka ka 来了）

This is so funny. We never taught him the word 'ka ka' and I asked the baby sitter, neither did she.

We didn't know what is 'ka ka' until one day he saw a cockroach and told his dad that was a 'ka ka'. Finally we have came into a conclusion that 'ka ka' is something that will bite because 'ka' means bite in hokkien (the baby sitter is a hokkien)

We went for dinner together in a restaurant. We ordered seafood platter where there are many different types of grilled seafood. He saw the prawns. I asked if he wanted it, he shook his head and said "eee.... ka ka". Then he saw his dad ate it, he told me 'ba ba chi ka ka'... (translated to pa pa eats ka ka)

Kids are so innocent... haha

Do you want to go to the school?

I believe Preston is a sociable kid, because he will make friends whenever he sees kids who are around his age. He will go near to them, introduce himself, shake hands and even hug them. He will share his stuff with his potential new friends. However, not all people are as sociable, some are very shy and ignore him. Well, that is life, that is the real world. Although, it looks cruel in the eyes of parents, but that is what we are going through and we have to accept it as part of life.

Life is tough, but life is fun.

We were thinking to send him to the childcare center, on another hand, we are worried that he won't get as much attention as being with a dedicated baby sitter. We know he loves school. He likes to make friends, he like to learn and play.

I told him that if he can say his full name when people ask, we will send him to the childcare and he nodded :P

Some updates (20 months old):

> Weighs 13kg
> Able to construct simple sentence
> More understanding and more accommodating
> Still cute

Ｕｐｄａｔｅｓ ｏｎ ｓｐｅｅｃｈ ｐｒｏｇｒｅｓｓ

18 months old

Flipping through the photos taken, Preston has grown so much.

Weighs almost 13kg now

Preston starts talking! He can say a few words already and he is picking them up fast. He starts recognizing different types of fruits. However, he is still having problems learning 3 syllabus word, for instances, he will relate 'papaya' to 'pa pa' and he pronounces coconut as 'cococo'...

....
19 months old

Today, he is more than 19 months old already. He is getting better and better each day. He can form a simple sentence with a noun and a verb with his limited vocabulary. Such as, 爸爸拿，妈妈拿，康康吃，airplane vroomm (take off). He is also able to express himself and let us know his needs.

The Sand and I

He is a big big boy now as he should be categorized as toddler instead of baby. There were a few incidents happened recently, this is one of them that I think is worth sharing:

Weekends have always been breakfast and groceries shopping at IMM in Jurong East. The reason is because the place is more family-friendly. It is more spacious as compared to other shopping malls which are occupied with shops. Another more valid reason is that the journey from Bukit Batok to Jurong East is relatively short as compared to other places. Preston will sometimes get bored and grumpy being in the baby car seat for too long.

But being sick of the same place for countless weekends, we decided to make a change, not too adventurous, we decided to have breakfast at the Mac Donald's of the West Coast Park at West Coast (slightly further than IMM). After we had our Big Breakfast, we decided to take a walk in the park. We saw lots of kids playing in the sanded area (just like a tiny beach but sanded with coarser sand) so we thought Preston might like it. He freaked out when we told him "we are gonna take off our shoes and play in the sand"... his legs were curled up as tightly as a koala bear to whoever was carrying him and screaming for help... it is so funny!

He is naturally scared of things that tickle, like carpet, kiwi fruit, pineapple, cactus, even though they don't hurt. Being barefoot in the sand is worse anything to him. And, he doesn't like dirt. He was picking up every grain of sand from his hand and throwing it away.

Last week wasn't too bad. we bought him a set of beach toys. He seemed enjoying, but still looked tensed throughout the whole session. He barely moved from the location where he was put down.

Tomorrow we will go again and make sure this time he can overcome his whatever fear.