So I’m sitting at a cafe once again, staring into space while waiting for my mee rubus.
This is an unplanned me-time because I left the house with the intention of getting a new phone while armed with the sms from Singtel offering $200 fee waiver for an early recontract.. only to find out that I can’t get the waiver as I wanted to switch to a corporate plan.
I cannot brain the logic behind this so as a matter of principle, I left the shop sans a new phone.
I’ve been waking up at 3am and 6am for a few nights in a row so I feel like I’m losing my mind.
Anyway.. let me start on my backlog!
Da-yi’s Birthday
I brought Clarissa over to my parents’ place last Friday evening to celebrate my sister’s birthday after she got home from school.
As usual she was super excited about it and the minute she got home, she said to me, “Mummy I want to hurry. I don’t want to play. I want to go to Wai-po’s place now.”
Still it took us more than an hour to get ready lol because she had to pee, and then shower, and then she had to poop.
Decided not to bring Allie because it’d be way past her bedtime.
Before we left she said to Allie, “Meimei, you cannot go because you are too small. Next time when you are bigger I’ll bring you ok?”
πππ
She insisted on carrying her bag on one shoulder only. π
Whose birthday was it anyway? π π
She ran into the house the minute I opened the door, exclaiming, “HUAT AH!”
Is it Chinese New Year again/already?
Si-yi bought the cake, after checking which flavour the little boss (hahaha not the birthday girl) would like to have.
My mum bought a pack of rice crackers for her and a pack of baby biscuits (theε°ι¦ε€΄kind) for Allie.
I told my mum that Allie can’t eat those biscuits yet, to her disappointment, and Clarissa who was sitting beside us listening to our conversation, chipped in:
“I have teeth! I have teeth!”
Lol.
Which meant, the biscuits are now hers.
Meimei can eat when she grows some teeth.
She ate well and played well, basking in the attention of her Yi-yis. π
Elevator stories
In the latest episode of embarrassing parenting moments at the lift:
We were waiting at the lift after school one day when a lady who looked like she’s around the age of my mum, maybe slightly older, stepped out.
The little boss greeted her chirpily:
“Hello, Old Lady!”
I was mortified.
Said “Old Lady” gave me a very black face (ok her face was already quite black before the lift door opened) and walked away before I could even apologise.
Had a chat with the little boss and told her it’d be best to simply greet people as “Uncle” or “Auntie”.
I wasn’t sure if she was listening but the next morning we bumped into our neighbor on another floor. She was waiting for someone and didn’t get into the lift.
“Hello Auntie!” Clarissa said to her as the lift door closed.
She turned to us and said, “I call Auntie, correct? At first I wanted to say, Hello chaticha*! But I said hello auntie.”
(*I don’t know what this means; it’s a random word she made up. π)
Big sister
Adding to her self-imposed list of big sister duties, she’d now go into the room to rock Meimei once she hears her grumbling or calling out.
“I go I go,” she’d say.
Once she goes into the room, she will close the door behind her and not allow me or Yaya to go in.
One late afternoon I peeped using the CCTV and saw her rocking her sister gently.
Two minutes later she’d open the door, run out and declare, “Meimei doesn’t want to sleep anymore!”
And she’d run back in and try to carry Meimei out of the sarong. π€£
Which is impossible, of course, because Meimei is more than half her weight. π
But she’d give Meimei a hug as we carry her out, and help her out of the swaddle. π
Upgrade
She has declared Ikea to be her new favourite place because of the ice-cream.
We were there on Saturday to buy her “Big girl chair”.
She chose another design and color but I overruled it because this one felt more sturdy and she was able to get up and off the chair with ease.
And I don’t like red? π
I *cough* tricked *cough* her into choosing this white chair by asking her to choose between this and another design in black when we were about to check out. π
She loves this chair all the same!
That’s her getting up her chair as a self-proclaimed “kangaroo” – she’d clipped a surprise egg onto her camisole. π π
I immediately went on qoo10 the same night to look for chair (leg) stoppers because the sound of the chair getting dragged on the floor was killing me. π π
I carted out anti-slip gliders and these adorable socks (for 99 cents! though shipping costs $3.99 wtf) for chair legs lol.
Chose these colours to match the high chair lol. To be honest I’m not sure what I was thinking when I chose that high chair during the baby fair. Never trust a pregnant woman to buy stuff. π π
Received the gliders and socks yesterday and put them up today.
Phew. I feel sane again.
And so, this one got upgraded too.
It was very back-breaking, trying to feed her in the bumbo seat.
We’ve made changes to dinner time too.
Instead of feeding Allie at 6 before Clarrisa eats at 630pm, we’ve started getting the two girls to eat together at 6.
This might seem like more work but we’re in fact taking advantage of Clarissa’s competitiveness at meal times (and in general) and her “Big sister” mentality, and turning them into an efficient solution.
I don’t want to jinx it by talking about it in detail π but I hope it continues to work even after this week.
Pretty petty
Last night at chitchat time I decided to talk to Clarissa about her crying.
She cried twice last evening over two tiny incidents.
1) Yaya asked her if Meimei was still sleeping and said Ssshhh.
She protested, “I’m not loud! Why you say Ssshhh?” before crying out loud, very pitifully, like she’d been wronged.
2) While bathing, a teeny bit of shampoo got into her eye and she whined and cried.
So I re-explained the situations to her, mainly to make her see it from another perspective, and asked her again why she cried.
She launched into a long explanation.
“Pretty people can cry. Not pretty people cannot cry.
Me: Erm, so why did you cry?
Because I’m a lot pretty. So I cry. After I cry, I become a little pretty.”
The hubs and I looked at each other, mind blown.
I swear, I do not know where she got this idea from.
I told her it was nonsense and she laughed while saying, “Hey cannot say nonsense! And cannot say jialat!”
Jialat.
π π π
Pink and Blue
Recently the little boss has been telling me, “Mummy, I like pink now! I don’t like blue!”
I feel a little bummed, because, what happened to my cool little girl who likes blue?
She’s been learning about the differences between boys and girls in school, and while I know it’s pretty difficult to teach 3-4 year-olds about the real differences (ahem), I’m a little disappointed to learn from her that “boys have short hair and girls have long hair”. π
I tried to “correct” the stereotype by telling her, “well some boys have long hair and some girls have short hair?”
Hahaha I know it’s kinda weak.
I hope she didn’t change her color preference because of nonsense like “boys like blue and girls like pink”. π
I sounded her out to see if she’s learned anything else regarding boy/girl norms.
Me: Clarissa, do you like tall boys or short boys?
Clarissa: Some boys are tall and some boys are short. Some girls are tall and some girls are short.
Me: So do you like tall boys or short boys?
Clarissa: Mmm.. I like good boys! And good girls!
Lol.
Yes ah, good boys are better.
Friends
Disclaimer: This is not her “boyfriend” and I’m certainly not going to suggest anything like that to her at her age.
I love these two photos of her and a little Gor-gor who was in Taiwan with her.
Apparently she cried after the second photo was taken when she realised that someone was lying on her shoulder. She didn’t like it. π
I hope she looks back at these photos and the videos her Daddy took, and remembers how much of a trooper she has been.
It’s so lovely to have friends going on adventures with you, whether you are three or five, thirty or fifty.
Bonus.. not
I’ve just realised today that Labour day falls on Tuesday.
I’ve always assumed it was on a Monday and I’d return to work on Tuesday.
(And I kept telling people I’ll be in office next Tuesday wtf.)
So I guess I should rejoice for the extra day of free access to bubs1 and bubs2, and a 3-day work week?
Although..
I’m already feeling bad about missing out on her school events.
My new assignment isn’t travel-intensive, but there are a few business trips set for the next two months which are necessary for my onboarding and learning about the category, market and consumers.
And one of the trips happens to be in the same week where her school is buzzing with various activities.
I don’t join many activities in the first place, but Mothers’ Day? She’d be upset to see her friends with their mums.. while I won’t be there with her. ππ
Sigh.
As usual I’ve taken a few hours to complete this post in between Mummy duties.
The hubs came home before 8pm today and suddenly became the chosen one to shower the little boss.
She took her shower basket and declared, “I’m going to give this to the person I want to shower me.” π
And the basket landed on Daddy’s lap even though he was busy hiding his face while I had my hand stretched out to receive it. π
The Taiwan trip has brought them closer and as a result Daddy gets hand-picked to do bedtime (and shower time) by the boss sometimes. π€£π€£
And now I get to complete this entry because she’s chosen him to tell her the bedtime story and to hold her hand to sleep. π
weeirdism 