Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Cayen has the weirdest dreams ... A few nights ago... Cayen was shouting in his sleep ..."阿公 Mai (don't), 阿公Mai !" Well, in his sleep, while he was trying to grab a toy or bolster, he ended up grabbing the giant monkey's hand (monkey is on his bed). As such, the hand didn't budge and he couldn't move it. Hence, in his dream , he must have thought that 阿公 was snatching something with him . Suddenly , his shouting softened to a gentle 阿爸， 阿爸...  So his father went to pat him and strangely upon patting, he started to turn upset and started to ask for 阿爸 to carry him instead, his eyes still closed all these while ! What a emotional roller coaster in a single dream. Last night , he started shouting in the middle of his sleep  "auntie Mai ! Auntie Mai!" Well, auntie is the cleaning person who comes to our house every week so before she mops the floor, she would remove his beloved alphabet tiles from the floor. In this instance, he had displaced th...

Last Friday , we went for dinner at this coffee shop  Tian Wai Tian Fishhead Steamboat. Apparently,  their Fishhead steamboat has been there for very long so my father brought us to try .. By the time we found parking, settled down and ordered,  it was already 7.30pm when the steamboat arrived. When the steamboat first appeared hot and steamboat, Cayen exclaimed excitedly "饭来了！ 饭来了！” . We were quite surprised as it's the first time he's so excited about dinner. Either he enjoys steamboat (this is not his first) or he was really hungry...  Anyway, the fishhead steamboat didn't disappoint ... After end of meal , he exclaimed with a satisfied "饭好吃！” I tend to agree too, as the accompanying dishes we ordered were as good as the steamboat itself, ie Har Cheong Gai, special tofu and vegetables with five bowls of rice and a couple of drinks. And the amazing thing is that the bill came up to only under $80 for 4 adults and 1 kid.  Will go again! 

"Humans are born to lie" - me  I'm sure no one taught him but Cayen somehow is starting to tell lies. On more than one instance , he did some naughty things like throw some stuff on the floor or try to do some forbidden activities, but when we questioned him, he would flatly deny it. He wouldn't even bat an eyelid and he was not grinning (sometimes he does when he's purposely teasing). 睁眼说瞎话！  Perhaps it's the fear of being found out or perhaps he knew that he had done something forbidden but I wonder why his instinct is to lie about it ..  Since it's not nurture , I figure it's nature. More work ahead to impart the right values .. 

Cayen has been very naughty in school of late. Yesterday, when the class went to the toilet, he sneakily stayed behind when they all returned to the classroom. When they found him, he was playing with water.  Today, the issue was bigger. There was some paints and stuff in the classroom. So he hid in one corner and squeezed all the tubes of paints onto  the floor and all over himself. When the teachers found him, they also found a big mess of blue all over. Think they had to scrub a lot to get all the stains off. Cayen's uniform was completely soiled too.  I think he was asked to stand in a naughty corner for doing all these. Apparently , his chinese teacher was so crossed with his bad behaviour , she told him she will ignore him. Upon hearing, he burst into tears, crying so uncontrollably that the principal had asked the teacher why she let him cry till it's so bad. The teacher said that he needed to know that he has done wrong, I tend to agree. Cayen te...

Cayen is sprouting a lot of new words nowadays ... Sometimes I get it , most of the time I don't. So usually when I don't, I will ask Da "decode , decode". Today, once again cayen mentioned something that I didn't quite understand again. I stared at him blankly and he tried to repeat about 3-4 more times.  Finally, I gave up and turned to look at Da. Before I could utter anything, Cayen screamed "decode, decode!"  * stunned *  It's amazing the things they absorb without us knowing. 

阿婆：我很生气，我不理 阿yen , 你自己一个人.. Cayen：你不理我，我去玩猫砂 (normally he's not supposed to play with cat litter)  阿婆 ： 。。。 -----  阿婆： 如果你一个人在家，你会不会怕？ Cayen: 我去拿东西吃，然后玩猫砂。(this little opportunist!) 

阿爸过来陪我一起坐..阿婆坐那里.. ------- 我们每个人一杯..咖啡.. -------- 我们大家一起吃 --------- 阿婆，去后面看阿公做什么？ --------- Me: Cayen, if you throw things, what will happen ?  Cayen: beat people ! (?!?! I only threaten to 打， I don't believe I have introduced the word "beat" as yet )  ---------- Me: 天黑黑可不可以找阿婆？ Cayen: no , N , O , no  Me: 如果你找阿婆，会怎么样？ Cayen: 打 Me: 对, 妈妈不理你，不看你。 Cayen : 阿爸看cayen  Me: 阿爸也不看你。 Cayen : 阿公看cayen。 (Hahaha) 

Cayen's soliloquy while ah pa had a late night out .. C: 阿妈，找阿爸 .. me： 你躺，你躺，阿爸就回来了 (X 10 times) After 20 minutes .. When it looks like he's about to sleep .. He heard the door open .. He sprang up .. C: 阿爸回来了！ 阿爸回来了！ （x 5 times) Then ，阿爸 went to bathe .. C: 快点..阿爸快点！ 快点.. 一点..一点点..快一点..（x 10 times) C: 阿爸穿衣服.. C: 姨姨大便..（x8 times) ？！？ C: 阿爸冲凉，Mai ... (x 5 times) C: 阿爸穿衣服..穿滑滑 (x3 times) C: 阿爸开门，阿爸锁门 C：阿爸大便 ... Finally, 阿爸 came out .. If you are wondering what I was doing .. I was stoning after reading for 1.5 hours non stop since 10pm. I was too tired to pick up my phone to record .. For the record..he's still wide awake now, insisting for his ah pa to read to him. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

This morning, we started the day with brunch at A for Arbite. Just after we parked the car, we were pleasantly surprised at the scene that greeted us at the carpark. There was a big bunch of crows on one side and a family of cock and chickens on the other. Amazed, we lingered for a while to show Cayen the chickens up close. He was super thrilled.  We then proceed to the cafe that had am interesting menu, a selection of toys for kids, a kids menu and overall rather good service. I chose a salted egg crab meat pasta that was so-so as I didn't like the sauce/ herbs but I saw that the breakfast set was pretty good. My latte was a little too bitter.  All in, it's still a good place to visit , with ample seating and the convenience of a carpark right outside. The chickens were a bonus. Enough reason to come back again.  Managed to catch up with both our friends in one morning and that was good as October is going to be a super packed month of action, events and...

While Cayen seems to take to reading well, he didn't seem to like sand or grass so much. Hence, we decide to bring him to the beach whenever we can so he can run a little and watch the waves come in. YouTube Video - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Time flies and the little crawler has now morphed into a little runner who's quite capable of holding a mini conversation and dishing out instructions (阿爸抱抱找阿婆）; exerting independence in eating and doing things himself (ie ah yen 幫忙）；singing songs randomly (Particularly just before he dozes off). And of course it's also both of progression and regression , from scratching to not scratching and then back now again to scratching... From brushing teeth to not brushing and from eating vegetables to not eating much. Just like me when I was (much) younger, birthday is a big affair .. Involving multiple celebrations and cakes .. Here's a snippet of what Cayen did over the long weekend.  YouTube Video YouTube Video

Alamak : an act of exclamation ..Sometimes with exasperation That day he messed up the alphabets tiles at night and it was all in a messy pile. When he woke up the next morning to see that pile, he exclaimed "Alamak!" Whoa: to express an unexpected movement When ah Pa drives over a hump, cayen will say Whoa , just like how I usually do. "Oh oh !" when something drops to the floor ..for example food, spoon and forks etc "Baby..come inside...here" When telling the baby inside the deep pool to come on over to the baby pool where he is. "One only" I'm really surprised he knows how to use "only" .. "Ah pa, one more time .. Swim again" When requesting ah pa to swing him around in the pool ... "Bo (don't have in hokkien).. Missing ! When describing that something or someone is missing or not around. "Ah Yen Waiting" He seems to know when to add "ing" to certain Words. "Mai3 (don't want in Hok...

A lot of people says Singapore is boring. Actually I don't think so .. The key is whether are you adventurous enough to explore every nook and corner. I find there the motivation is much higher now with Cayen around as we would somehow find the energy to do so despite how long or tough the week has been. To start the day, we had wanted to have brunch. And due to my stubborn insistence to try something new (as life is short),  we landed at this Madame Pattiserie cafe at boat quay (courtesy of Ah Pa) that has very nice interior design and even a children area of toys. I really love the design but unfortunately as we didn't order much desserts, which were its signature, I didn't leave having a great rating on her other food. The burger was decent , the breakfast was alright but the spaghetti bolognaise left much to be desired. The strawberry cake was a little to sour for my liking. Overall, it's an interesting place to hang out, service is very good, I may go the...