Multiparenting Cayen & Cayson

Since it’s Halloween today, it’s appropriate to have some stories on monsters.  Cayson asked very seriously, “Ah Ma, is there monsters ?” Me: No, no monsters. Not in our house. Who told you? C: Ah Pa  Me: No, no monsters. Did you see them? C: No, outside.  Me: Where? C: Hiding. Monster hiding.  Me: Oh no, there’s no monster.  C: See ... there ! (Points to behind me? See!)  I looked around and didn’t see anything.  C: There! I’m starting to get worried. C: See the dog!  Oh, I realise he’s pointing to the soft toy Eevee behind me. Phew! C: Ah Ma, I hear sound.  Me: huh? What sound?  C: sound. Scoring .  Me: No, I don’t hear anything.  C: yes, there’s sound. Ah Yen scoring ..,  Me: Oh , you mean snoring ? No,  I don’t think so (Cayen is in another room ; no way he can hear him from here amongst this white noise) Anyway, moral of the story. Don’t ever tell kids before that there’s monsters in the house or watch too much Y...

In the last one year, he was noticeably more able to share with his younger brother. In fact, sometimes we marvelled in his ability to repeat so patiently his instructions to Cayson repeatedly.  Perhaps Cayson’s empathy and sharing nature has rubbed off him, or perhaps the big brother responsibility has sank in, but relatively speaking, he had matured as the older brother in the past year (though the small regular fights still happen from time to time). When I aligned from the car each morning, he would ask me to “have a nice day”!  In the past year, he had managed to go for quite a few lessons , mostly non academic like sports, mental arithmetic, executive functioning, music etc. The only academic one was initiated somewhat by himself when he realised that his Chinese is not good.  This year, he showed that he is able sit in a place and do work with focus if he wanted to. His recent teacher review at Little Executive was pretty good as the teacher spoke of his great impr...

It’s been a hectic month of Sep as we have gone to Dubai in the earlier part. Hence, I realised I have skipped a month of update for Cayson’s milestones. Oops. And because we spent lots of time together, I was able to able to absorb more of his developments since the last month.  In Dubai, as he’s too short to enter most of the rides, the usual questions or action at each ride is to measure ride and to ask if he can go in. As such, after a few stations, he would ask , “ Baby can ?” We would reply, “Oh , cannot. Baby too small.” Then when we finally found something where he could take, we asked, “ Baby want to play?”  He replied, “No, Baby too small, Baby cannot sit. Baby angry!”  That’s when we knew that he’s getting frustrated at being rejected at so many rides. And he kind of understood what’s being angry.  Recently at home, his favourite new phrases are:  - “I don’t know” .. (And this is always in an exaggerated and cheeky tone)  - “no, no, no.. I don’t ...

Me and the kiddos redeemed our miles and tagged along Da on his work trip over the National Day weekend. This is the first time we travelled two on two by plane as my mum usually joins us. The flight there was fairly smooth as Cayson managed to sleep through most of it. Cayen napped sfor a short while but awakened as he couldn’t find a comfortable position. Thanks to all my preparations, he doodled on his journal , game book and eventually I even read all the safety instructions.  As we took a morning flight, day 1 was spent mainly eating very good local food, courtesy of our very kind neighbours / friends who had helped planned the trip’s itinerary and food menus.  Day 2 was zoo day at Chimelong. It was a good zoo , complete with dinosaurs. Cayen accused me of lying that dinos are extinct as he’s seeing them now. Haha. The zoo was big and complete with pandas , including the world’s only triplets, alongside an impressive extended family of white tigers and other Asia and Afri...

Cayson had his first outdoor concert last week in early celebration for National Day. It was super hot that afternoon but all the children still tried their best to put on a good performance. We were very impressed by Cayson’s good showing as he danced and shook the shakers to the beat , and was quite a natural on stage. Cayen also performed to a very rap / hip hop tune with some cool moves (for their age).  At 25 months, Cayson is now having a strong self awareness like “mine” , “my space” , “I want”, “I like” are words that are common occurrences recently. In fact, on some nights, he will rattle off the list of people and things that he likes before he sleeps, “ I like Ah Pa, I like Ah Mama, I like Ah Yen, I like Yiyi etc” He’s also got a sense of humour as he will give me a cheeky smile whenever he’s doing something unorthodox.  Strangely he has grown more attached to us this month , almost reminiscent of 6 months ago. This means that he sometimes cry during drop off , or i...