Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

31st Jan is the special day of the blue moon, super moon and total lunar eclipse, and it's also the day that young Cayson has to face the first farewell in his young school life. It's his best friend's last day in school - he is only one who is with him in the afternoon session. He's his partner in crime as they learn new tricks from each other. Cayson can even pronounce his two syllabus name accurate. Hope he takes to his new friend today. 

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...

2017 marks Nanyang's 100 years' anniversary and hence, a few of us decided to go back to visit the new campus that we didn't have chance to study in , and also to watch the movie premiere. It was surprisingly professional , from the cinematography to the children's acting and good spoken Mandarin. I hope it will be screened publicly for many more people to see.  In the movie, there's quite a few interviews with past students, teachers and principals and most of them echoed the same sentiments that character and grit building were important aspects of education there, including the need to contribute to society & be a useful person. They have already emphasised all these since the start of time , way before all these concepts of Grit & Growth Mindset become hot topics in recent parenting/educational culture. And it was quite touching to see how girls didn't always have the chance for education in early Singapore and I think we should be grateful for the o...

Cayson's 1 year old .. Time really flies .. especially when you have 2 kids to reckon with. Here's some of his key achievements / milestones for the record: - grand total of 4 teeth (2 on top and 2 below) - not sure the weight and height but should be around 10kg (will update this after the one year check up) - currently sleeps at 8.30pm, dreamfeeds at 11-11.30pm, wakes at 4-5am or on lucky days at 7am.  - he's very athletic and super active, he can throw balls into the miniature hoop , got strong calf and thigh muscles , and can walk 4-5 steps independently.  - he's not that steady when walking yet but he's already half running with a bit of support from Ah Po. He can do that for one hour walking in the house in repeated rounds.  - he knows how to sit down on the orange little chair on his own even though he's not so steady yet. He figured out how to climb, stand and sit,  - he's fearless .. he bounces right back after a fall. - he loves his brother Cayen t...

Today's a special day as it was Baby Owen and Baby Kyra's full moon party. We headed out for both parties to send our warmest wishes. As usual, once Cayson sat in my baby carrier and we stepped out of the house, he actually shrieked and waved his arms excitedly ! This little guy loves to go out and play.  At Owen's party, Cayen, Don and Caleb ran around the room , and played with balloons and catching. Was happy to see the kids having fun.  At Kyra's party, Cayen was asleep for most of the first half but woke up with renewed vigour and jumped non stop on the bouncing castle with Caleb and Khai Yao - laughing and shouting that 2 years old and below not allowed.  After the lovely parties, we headed home and we realised that Cayson's two front teeth (bottom row) is out. Also, he can now stand on his own for 2-3 seconds! 2 achievements unlocked all in one night. Even Cayen was excited for his brother too. What a great day it was! 

Woke up earlier to play with Cayson at 6.20am so hopefully his separation anxiety won't be so bad. But can't do this every day as I need to sleep to function properly and not fall sick.  By morning, I have received great news about the safe delivery of my new godson Owen! We quickly hurried to the hospital in the evening to visit and to welcome this precious one. It was also good to see Julian promoted to big brother too, and happily receiving the "gifts from baby". Baby Owen, welcome to this world !  Little prince  When we returned home, Cayson was wailing the house down as he's overtired after refusing to lie down and sleep for the last 1 hour. He was doing his standing up act again. Thankfully he finally quietened down after 10 minutes of coaxing. Thankfully Godma Hsien was around to help out , else we might not be able to go visit Owen too. 

Over the birthday weekend, we tried the very very big Chinese steamed seafood and mookata. Guess the steaming and the soupy part of the mookata makes everything a little less sinful , until the cheesecake . Haha. The swimming helped to offset the food a little too. Anyway, got him the Google Home for present . However , given that it's not launched in Singapore yet, most of the functions are not available. As of now, questions are limited to "what's the weather now", "what's the biggest planet?" etc. Initial verdict is that it's voice recognition is better than Siri but its ability to reply to chitchat is not like Siri yet. I.e. It doesn't reply with humorous answers. Anyway, will do a more detailed review when I have time to meddle. 

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 ...