Cayen's 4

The past year has been quite an eventful year for Cayen - having to cope with a preggy mother, change of school and finally the arrival of a new baby brother.

While I was initially worried about whether we made the wrong choice in changing his school, I also took comfort in the fact that the school have nurtured him in the following aspects - he has become more confident with higher slides in playgrounds, he's fine with playing sand and overall become more athletic. Guess having outdoor play does make a real difference. Having his Ah Pa bring him swimming also meant that his water confidence has increased and he's no longer so scared of water on his face. While he still can't swim unassisted, he's at least able to do a few laps with his floatation jacket and have a good workout.

Also, while he has earlier been very picky about his clothings , we've also seen an improvement over recent months where he's more open to different clothing.

In the past year, he's into lego, or anything that involves creating structures. He's also into playing games involving mazes and drawing his own treasures maps.  

This is also the year that he got to know and became obsessed with Paw Patrol , Blaze and the Monster Machines and finally Pokemon. Three is an impressionable age , everything they see on YouTube or TV gets internalised almost immediately. Hence, while I'm grateful that he learnt the terms "trajectory" and "structural engineering" from Blaze , I certainly didn't think it's funny when he said he's going to "cheat". Guess the only thing we can do is to stay in tune with whatever they are watching and have teaching moments when he chanced upon bad behaviour.

This year , he also learned about concept of difficulty from the game where he has to progress from Starter, Junior, Expert to Master.

Anyway, given that Pokemon is his latest favourite , his birthday weekend has been planned around this theme. On Saturday, we had a staycation and brought him to Pororo Park, joined by Julian, Winnie n Tat. Then we went to Marche for a group dinner since there's a kid's playground there, joined by Alvin,Drina,Nat, Caleb, Shu Hsien, Shuying too (had to list everyone as we forgot to take group shots as usual.) That night, he was up till midnight as he just couldn't sleep , so I taught him the concept of a wish and gave him some examples of what he could wish for. However, he didn't hesitate at all before he declared his wish was to find the shadows and evolved from stage 3 to stage 4 and to stage 5. What a waste of wishes I thought , but well, that's a child's wishes and who's to judge?

On Sunday , we celebrated with the family and we somehow chanced into a cafe with a Pokeball cake. Then, suddenly as he was walking, he suddenly spotted a Lapras but it escaped. However, as we made our way home, by some stroke of luck, Ah Pa caught it ! Seems like Cayen was quite lucky or perhaps wishes do come true - they had captured Snorlax early that week and now the elusive Lapraz too.

On Monday, the Pokemon theme continued as I had prepared a cake, cupcakes and Pokemons and balloons for school. I was so surprised that many in his class could name so many Pokemons. Looks like he's not the only one who's playing .

Anyway, the party in school ended the weekend of celebrations. Just like this, my little baby has grown into a four year old. Here's my wishes for you Cayen - may you be happy , healthy and bubbly always. And may you always have your sense of wonder and be ready to try new things and take on any challenges. Love you!




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