Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Cayen is a kid who loves to eat .. And he especially loves fruits and anything yummy. Since young, ie from 6 months onwards , we have been very careful with what we feed him. No salt , no sweet stuff and certainly no adult food. So while we exposed him to a variety of fruits, we have limited him to a rather bland diet of cereals and porridges and he was a healthy water throughout, at least till 1 year old. Since then, we have been much more liberal and chicken rice and not-too-sweet cakes were also permissive in his diet. Then we noticed the change. He is now showing distinct preferences. He can self feed chicken rice fairly well but he would take double the effort for the usual pork or fish porridge. Just last Sunday, he demonstrated how he preferred the sweet raspberry to the sour strawberry (though I was amazed how he could even distinguish between the two fruits to start with, since  I had already chopped them up ).  Summary : if you wanna have an easier tim...

When Cayen used to make laughing noises in his sleep in his early months,  I always wonder what he could be dreaming of and if he was indeed dreaming. Last night, he said "nana" (for banana) in his sleep and that was because he was refused a banana treat in the evening (cox he already had one in the afternoon). So he thought about it so much that he dreamt about it. No wonder they say 日有所思， 夜有所梦..

Cayen always surprises me with the things he picked up with only 1 mention. On Sunday, I overheard my godson saying "Haha" at the right juncture when we sing the song "dang wo men tong zai yi qi" .. so I just casually sang the song to Cayen a few times and tried to get him to say "Haha". He didn't say the word at the right juncture but he managed to  pronounce "Haha" when prompted. So I didn't think too much about it yesterday but out of fun today, I decided to sing the song to him and paused at a certain juncture to elicit his "Haha" not expecting anything,  but he actually said "Haha" when I paused! So he remembered the song and the "Haha" sound.   Then we were watching TV together and I saw a chicken. So I asked him a chicken lay an .....? He loudly proclaimed "Egg!" and again I was astonished. I recalled telling him a few times earlier about this relationship when he picked up the word ...

This is dedicated to my dear friends who are expecting their bundle of joy very soon. Being a hassle-free type of mother who needs to go back to work after maternity leave, and also one who likes a good bargain, these are the things I personally find very useful, practical & cost saving. 1. A good breastfeeding pillow  - my Brestfriend  For some strange reason, I didn't see the need to invest in this initially. But this has to be the top 1 or 2 items I cannot live without during the first few months. No matter how I positioned the normal pillows, I just couldn't get the right positioning without straining my shoulders/ back. So yes, this is first on the list. Anyway, if your milk production is low, try papaya with fish soup and remember to drink lots of water. If all else fails, you still can try to take some herbal medicine before resorting to Formula Milk. This herbal supplement improved production by 30-50%. I only took it when baby was having gr...

Cayen is a very active kid . Hence, the challenge when bringing him out is to find sufficient ways to entertain or engage him, especially we are quite hassle free parents who don't like to bring many toys or use the iPhone or iPad (unless we absolutely have to).  A game that I have devised over time is to "spot the logo" game. So for example, his favourite is the "MasterCard" game. When we are in a shopping centre, he will point out to me where are the MasterCard logos and recently his ability to spot small logos in obscure places surprises & surpasses me at times.  He also recognises the coffee bean free coffee & handicapped sign. How it all started was that whenever we take cabs, I need to find ways to keep him still throughout the ride. Before he was interested in cars and taxis, the most immediate tool I could find without groping & struggling was the immense amount of decals on the taxi windows. The Mastercard sign for some reason...

We started reading to Cayen since he was 6 months old and given the number of times we read his story books , I would have thought he would be a very earlier speaker .. or at least call Mama before 1 year old. Unfortunately, that didn't happen but the saving grace is that his comprehension seems quite strong. While he cannot pronounce many words at an early age, his priorities were very clear. "Um" is the first word and he would say it when he wanted to eat. And he was always very fast to point to the bananas, the books and anything that he wanted. And his memory seemed rather good too as he could remember the most random things I taught him, such as the Mastercard logo, Handicapped sign, the most recently the No Smoking sign. Well, the breakthrough in his speech really happened these few days. From only being able to say Mama, Ah Pa, Yi Yi, Egg, Up and Bird last week, he suddenly could say More, Duck, Wooo!, Cat, Bye, Woah Woah yesterday. Hope this is the start of e...

My order arrived yesterday - exactly 8 days (or 6 working days via Singpost) from US to Singapore!  .. I must say I'm quite impressed given that I only paid S$4 of delivery charge. And I got  $10 coupon off my purchase as it's my 1st order,  just key in the code HQT301.   Here's  my loot : Happy bellies Brown Rice Baby Cereal  and  Happy bellies Multigrain Cereal  ...plus the  Happy Baby Happy Munchies Baked Organic Cheese Grain Snack Broccoli Kale Cheddar Cheese . Why I bought 4 of the Brown Rice cereal is because  iHerb  have additional discounts for buying in multiples of 4.  Earth's Best Organic toddler wheat biscuits  and  organic Plum Tots fiddlesticks  The very moisturizing  Aveeno Baby cream  .. did wonders for his eczema  ChildLife Liquid Calcium  for the baby who don't like milk  Jarrow Formulas Calcium  supplement for my nanny with oste...

Cayen had a scratching problem . He used to scratch when he was upset about something and also when he was feeling just fine.  Outcome : all caregivers , from parents to grandparents and godparents, were all scratched every other day. It really hurt as he would dig in his nails (no matter how short) and scratch and usually we would see blood.  I googled everything I could about "aggressive 1 year old" , "violent baby" etc and tried different ways from slapping the offending hand to nagging to scolding and warning , nothing worked. In fact, sometimes when we slapped the back of his hand, he would slap us back.  Finally , I figured that perhaps he just needed a diversion or an alternative wat for him to express himself, so I decided to teach him a new trick - patting . So everything he scratch, I would put my hands on my hips and say "I'm angry" and growl a little. When he patted me, I would say "happy!" and then smiled very widely. I did that...

An article I read yesterday .. It's amazing how truly customising the learning experience can work so much wonders. Put a whole new perspective to child education and its possibilities. ----------- Ms Pamela Lim, who is finishing a book on how she tailored her children’s education to their strengths, will launch the online All Gifted High School here tomorrow. It is targeted at families who opt to homeschool their kids, from pre-school level upwards. Priced from $100 a month, her courses are designed for students to move forward at their own pace. -- ST PHOTO: ASHLEIGH SIM She was the toast of the town about a decade ago. Ms Pamela Lim was the founder and chief executive officer of a leading financial software developer in Asia that got approval for a Nasdaq-SGX listing. She bagged many coveted entrepreneurship awards and went on to become CEO of two global companies. Then, in 2004, she fell off the radar, choosing instead to stay at home to mind her five children after childcare a...

Last night , I was out of the room for 30-sec to make milk for the last feed. He walk making some noise after 10 sec but suddenly became quiet after another 10 sec. I went back to the room and to my horror, he was biting the cap of the steroid cream (for eczema) and a bit of cream was oozing out from the tube. I grabbed him to the toilet to rinse his mouth and also wiped his tongue with a cloth. He seemed quite alright and continued drinking his milk. I appeared calm (so as not to scare him) but I was dead worried. Though I doubt he ate the cream but there was a chance he took some. So as usual , I googled all links and also messaged his godfather , a doctor, for some advice. Here's a summary from the links  :  - if baby didn't eat too much it should be ok.  - if baby ate too much, he might vomit or get diarrhea.  - they say to call Poisons line (do we have that in Singapore?) Anyway, signs to watch out for thereafter are as follow: - vomiting...

I spent the whole of Sat planning a surprise party for the Hubby, which he claimed he already guessed. And it's unfortunate he was not feeling well and still played along. Anyway, by the time Sunday came , I decided to spend some quality time with Cayen so decided to take him out for some shopping. When I initiated it, I was faced with much objections. "He's so naughty now, you can't do it on your own , why don't you go and leave him at home.. Blah blah" I decided to just do it despite all the objections. After all so many people have done it and been doing it, why could I ? So first, I took him to take the bus (his favorite vehicle) .. And it was quite nerve wrecking as we met a few darker skinned people and he called them "ah n**" very loudly . In fact, he called the chocolate cake last night "ah n**" too. Apart from that , he was quite good during the ten min bus ride. Next up was the mrt . Again, he called out to the darker...