Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

With 2 kids now, 2017 flew past just like this.  For this year, on the personal front, I'm thankful that I have kept up with my goals of doing yoga and blogging once a week and have   also sharpened the saw by completing three trainings - SEO, Adwords/Facebook marketing and also Cryptocurrency.  As for parenting, I have also read many articles and two books "The Whole Brain Child" and most recently "How to Talk so kids will Listen and How to Listen so kids will Talk". This , alongside reading children books modelling good behaviour , playing lots of board games and puzzles, music, sports, executive functioning skills training and journaling , is my comprehensive strategy to nurture my smart, strong willed and sometimes impulsive kid . While it's not perfect yet but there's certainly marked improvement in the last one year so we just gotta keep it up.  With Ah Pa's training , Cayen has also mastered Chinese Chess (the normal and the covered half board...

Ah Pa went for a short trip over the weekend . Cayen woke up on Friday and said he wanted to send Ah Pa to th airport. To his horror, Ah Pa was gone already. Hot tears rolled down his cheeks. He was inconsolable .  In order for me not to be completely late, I decided to FaceTime Ah Pa with him so that he could at least try to start his routine. Little did I know that the crying became even louder as he realised that Ah Pa was leaving without him. But at least he started his routine and so we continued to FaceTime Ah Pa through the toilet and breakfast routine too.  So on Saturday, to make it more fun for him, we went to s friend's house for play date and also 2 playgrounds at night. I thought he had occupied himself sufficiently to forget about Ah Pa.  But the moment he came home, he asked me if we could FaceTime Ah Pa .. Ahz.. what a sweet little boy. Then on Sunday , we went to the airport to be picked up. We first met Caleb at the indoor playground at T3, and asked the...

Today, we went for the school concert. I was both excited and apprehensive all at the same time. Last year this time, he ran off the stage for the first performance and was distracted for most of the remaining. Hence, this year , though I had done some prep work , I was still not sure if he would be able to do it.  My worries were proven unfounded as he burst into all the right actions from the first song on. While he may not be as animated and natural as his performances at home , it was still a big improvement versus last year. When asked, he said he was feeling shy as there's so many people. But I was glad most of all that he at least tried (instead of escaping) and he was able to go through with all the song and dance.  So I guess these are good things to prepare the kids ahead of the performance if you know they are a bit shy on the stage: - ask him to practise at home, standing on a "stage"/higher ground , and sing for the family  - filming him at home and letting h...

Today, Cayen did the unusual. He was super fast in all the steps in the morning ritual - from breakfast to changing to brushing his teeth. Usually this would take a lot of persuasion and hurrying as he's trying to wake up from his blurry state and will drag his feet.  Pleasantly surprised, Ah Pa asked him why he was so good and fast today. He promptly replied it's because it's holiday today and tomorrow and hence, he's getting ready quickly to watch cartoons on Okto .  Ah Pa told him that it's a school day today but he didn't believe. He said, "we were at the pool just now and I overheard someone say it's public holiday today and tomorrow!"  Haha, he was actually dreaming , literally. There's no poolside conversation - he just woke up.  Perhaps this is a result of the long weekend. What one must applaud is the power of motivation and the power of the dream. 

This month's milestones has to be his incredible walking skills. After spending a day in the kiddy room in Kidzania, where he was free to roam and fall, he became a confident walker overnight .  From dragging the grandparents to walk with him around the house in circles, he started to independently do his rounds recently. This was a major upgrade from 4-5 wobbly steps just last month. His words remained limited at Ah Ma, Mama, Papa, Bird, Ba!(bus), Big Bird, Bag but he's been speaking a lot more gibberish recently so I guess more breakthrough will be coming soon. But perhaps we shouldn't expect so much. After all he's only 13 months. Looking back at Cayen's old posts, he's probably at the same pace.  He also knows how to ask bring Ah Po to the island area and ask / gesture for her to make milk for him when he wants to drink.  He has a sense of humour as he will purposely do something when I ask him not to and look at me for my reaction , and grin when I play alo...

For Cayen , that will be his first bowling game where he threw balls a third of his weight. He's so into it , he went for a second game. Thereafter he had a good time with his new friends in the indoor playground. After the game, he wanted to "see you forever" (in response to "see you tomorrow")  For the first time, we tried letting him try the bunk bed , he woke up midway sleep-talking about something so we brought him down to the queen size bed.  Then he experienced his first time rolling off the bed in between.  It's the first time Cayson slept in the lower deck of the bunk bed. All was well until 3am when he sat up, and knocked his head on the wooden side and woke up crying.  Cayson was up at 6.30am in the morning so I brought him to walk around. He  said his first double words (except Ah Ma, Ah Pa), he said "Big Bird" after I repeated it a few times in the morning when we saw so many birds.  On Day 2, most of the other kids have arrived and we...

Despite the much improved behaviour in Cayen  this year versus last year , the last two months were less optimal compared to first four months at home. For example, in the first four months, we no longer have the morning struggles of the routine from eating breakfast to teeth brushing and less of the disobedience of instructions in generally. Recently some of the bad habits have crept back in recent weeks and that got us quite baffled so I tried to understand what has changed in the last two months. And I have a sense of the potential reasons. So I interviewed Cayen .  Me: why you don't listen to instructions nowadays ? Is something wrong ? (Silence) Me: is it because of Didi (Cayson)? C: Yes, I feel jealous ? Me: when do you feel jealous ? C: when you 抱抱弟弟..（carry Cayson)  Me: when else do you feel jealous? C: when you give didi biscuits  And so, the truth is out. The dysfunctional behaviour is his way of getting attention when he feels like we are focusing more on ...

It's the first parent meet teacher session since the change of English and Chinese teachers this year. I was heartened to hear that he has made progress in leaps and bounds since last year.  As per last year, he has no problems with his academic stuff at all , and he learns things real fast. The only thing he should work on is his overly competitive streak which lends him into trouble sometimes, i.e. Trying to race his other kid to the toilet , to make his bed etc. And he likes to do things fast i.e. He will rush to do his Chinese writing etc so the strokes might not be so precise etc , but overall it's already better than before as teacher will erase and ask him to write again. I think a lot of the credit goes to the teachers who have been nice yet formed with him in terms of rules and boundaries. I would also like to think that my briefing to the form teacher before start of year also helped as I shared with her that he's a strong willed kid who needs clear boundaries and...