Terrible Two??!! Heard and seen before but I don't remember having this problem with my 2 girls when they were 2yrs old. Of course, they cried, but never those tantrum crying (throwing oneself onto the ground, non-stop crying...).
Very lucky of me? Not really. Try having tantrum threw by 6/7yrs old and you will very much prefer the 2yrs old darling's crying tantrum. At least, the 2yrs old baby looks cute and pathetic when he throw his weights around. But a 6/7yrs old can really make your blood boiled above the boiling point!
Back to my boy, his crying tantrum started with just normal crying till what he wanted landed in his hands. As his crying grew fiercer with times, I told everyone in the house to stop giving in to his crying demand. Only when he is able to ask properly then will the thing be given. This lead to him crying more and started those "force-vomit" cries.
I'm seldom home till evening and thus, didn't know about this new crying fits of his. Helper loves him a lot and thus, whenever he cried this way, she will carry him and give in to him. So, during one of those weekend, he cried that way again all because he wanted his jiejie's pencil!! I'm glad this happen at home so I can put a stop to this rather than having him play this game in public. It would be damn embarrassing!
I believe many moms out there would not agree to my "teaching" method, but I find this the most effective method to use even on my 6/7yrs old.
The video below may be uncomfortable to view by some...
When he started his crying fit, I told him to stop crying in a very calm tone. He refused to listen and kept on crying. I just sat there and waited for him to stop, occasionally, reminding him to stop before I will hug him. He sees no progress with me and thus look at my helper, giving those eye contact to ask her to carry him. My helper know better to interfere and thus, told him to stop and listen to mommy first.
The 2 jiejies felt the heartache and kept telling me to stop making him cry. Especially Rachel. She wanted to go over to hug him to stop his cry. Told the 2 girls to move off and helper explained to them that mommy is doing their little brother good.
He cried. He vomited. I still refused to give in. Can see that my helper felt the heartache too, so I brought him into my bedroom and let him continue his cry. He cried and vomited many times and finally realised that this crying doesn't work anymore and slowly, he stop. Once he stop, I gave him a big hug and explained to him that he cannot cry this way again. He nodded his head and I asked him to say "sorry" which he did.
Carry him out and washed him up while my helper cleaned up my room. She commented that the room look like a war zone with all the vomit patches everywhere.
After I changed him, reminded him again that he is not to cry this way again and whatever he wants, he has to ask properly. He nodded his head.
He did cry this way again after the "lesson" but whenever I said "stop crying" he stop immediately. Now, he didn't cried anymore, just normal soft whining like this.
After Charmaine's School Charity carnival, we pop over to my in-law's place. They really missed the grandchildren and started pampering them with treats.
Then, MIL brought little Nic to the kitchen and place him near the stove not knowing that her maid had just finished cooking noodle on it. And when she came out with him, he was still happily running around playing. Then, jiejie suddenly shouted for our attention to look at little boy's thigh and saw this!
It looks painful but surprisingly, he didn't cry at all. Told him its a burnt mark and this is a result of going near hot things. Since then, he kept pointing at the mark and says "next time don't go kitchen"
After the month long lesson on transport, the school organised a Ducktour excursion. It cost $21.60 per pax including the transport there. Since I didn't go with him the past 2 excursion, decided to join in this time..actually mommy also want to try the Ducktour la..
Little Nic was very obedient throughout the bus journey to and back. Some of his friends were crying, throwing tantrum..but he just sat there quietly, occasionally pointing out the birds and the cars..
When we boarded the "Duck", place him near the "window" but he struggled. He didn't want to sit too near the "window". Scared?? Throughout the rides, he refused to sit near the "window" unless on my lap. So young and knows about safety already?? hahaha..
We visited the Singapore River first and the "Ducktainer" pointed to us every attractions we passed by. This will be interesting for tourists but for us, we are more interested in taking pictures of our little ones though its quite difficult to take photos with the limited angle. The part that really catch the little ones' attention is when we passed by the Merlion! Even after a few days, when he chance upon his jiejie Chinese Textbook and saw the Merlion, he shouted "MERLION!!"
After the water tour, we move on to the land tour. Told that we are travelling on the same track as the F1 night race! So exciting! The only difference is that they are racing on Ferrari at 300km/hour while we are on a Duck travelling at 20km/hour.
Thanks to the Ducktainer, I didn't know Raffles Hotel is the most expensive class hotel in Singapore costing almost $800 per night at its cheapest! And learnt about the New Supreme court existence too! So embarassing, a Singaporean and yet knows nothing about the new Supreme court!!
After some months with the centre, Nicholas has grown more mature and now able to wait patiently for his turn. He is also able to listen to instructions given and carry them out. He's also becoming more independent and likes to socialize with his friends.
For the whole of last month, they were on the theme "Transport".
This is his favourite topic and he displayed a very keen interest on stories about vehicles told by the teacher. He really sat down and focus on what was taught. Teacher was amazed that he was able to tell her all the names of the vehicles! He said it very clearly from simple one like car, motorbike to bigger words like aeroplane, helicopter. Got to thank my helper for this actually as she had been teaching him these from his big picture book.
They did some 3D aeroplanes and the children get to identify which vehicle belongs to the air transport, sea transport or the land transport.
The teacher arranged the chairs and make a mini bus for the kids and they played pretend games with it.
See them sitting on "bus"
They did some art work with their vehicles too. He rolled his truck on the paint and let it move down the art paper. This help the kids to see the track that their vehicle made and different vehicles make different size track.
This looks interesting for him..see the little smile on his face.
For the sea transport, the teacher got a big tub and an "oar" for the kids to play pretend games again. They sang "row, row, row your boat" too!
And as if that is not enough, the teacher make a boat out a paper for the kids to play again the next day.
How can we missed the train! See little boy crawling under those chairs pretending that he is a train going through a tunnel!!
We arranged for a family birthday celebration for both Charmaine and Nicholas at my In-Law's place. Before that, we popped over to Swensen Parkway to get an ice-cream cake for the 2 birthday baby.
It took a good 15minutes for my indecisiveCharmaine to finally chose this Mickey and Minnie one. But can't blame her, can I? She need to choose one that is not so girly and yet to her liking. She had chose Jasmine and Aladdin; Ariel the Mermaid andCinderella but were all rejected by me and Rachel. Poor girl had to settle for this unisex one.
MIL prepared a big meal for us. We seldom go to her place now as its quite far from our house and also Rachel is preparing for her exam and also, I'm too lazy to travel all the way there and getting home so late every time.
After the wonderful meal, rested our tummy and hurried daddy to cut the cake. (I get really very tired easily nowadays). Once the cake is out, he started to sing the birthday song again and "blowing" candles. That really tickle the grandparents and the uncle.
Put the two candles and started singing birthday song for him and he gladly blow off fire once the lights come back on.
Grandpa prayed for God's blessing on him.
After that, its Charmaine's turn. Put another 4 more candles on and goes the birthday song again.
This big jiejie! Can't even blow the candles properly and Nicholas + Rachel chipped in to help with the blowing.
A quick family photo with the birthday kids before the kids attacked the ice-cream cake.
My little prince turns 2 today! Happy Birthday, darling!
He was in his cheery mood this morning and even sang us a birthday song when we wished him Happy Birthday. But guess he didn't really know that it was his birthday we are celebrating today as his birthday song was sang for Charmaine Have to correct him a few times before he realised it.
Instead of getting one big cake for him, decided to get cupcakes instead. Hunted high and low from the web and finally found cupcakemoma. Ordered the Premium design one which cost $2 each. Pretty reasonable. But when I got the cake, was a little disappointed as it look rather simple as compared to those posted on their web and the cake texture is a little stiff. Probably due to their high demand this month.
Back to him, he was so happy to see us at his centre earlier than the usual pick up time. His teacher had suggested for us to come after their lunch so that it would not affect the kids appetite for proper meal. When we got there, all the little ones are finishing up their last bits and some couldn't wait to taste the cutie cupcake.
When Nicholas saw the cakes, he went "wow" and started singing Birthday song and pretended to blow some invisible candles. When all the kids were done eating, they gathered around him and the teachers started to sing the birthday song. See how happy he is.
As if he had practised this many times, right after singing and blowing the candles, little Nicholas started taking the cupcakes and giving it to his friends and teachers. So proud of him!
The centre aunty really very sayang him.
After distributing the cakes, finally its his turn to eat. So clever of him to save the ONLY angel cupcake for himself.
It must be yummy for him. See the way he eats!
After finishing up every bits of the cupcake, he was reluctant to go back to his class and sulked a little. But the teacher got his attention very fast and soon, he was back to his normal self again!
For my record...
He now weighs 11.5kg and 83cm tall.
Able to speak in 4 to 5 words sentence and sing to the tune.
Loves carrot and corn and dislike meat.
Understand all instruction given and able to carry out.
Able to walk up and down the steps in adult way with the help of railing.
Hubby pity me for working non-stop round the clock and told me he will take over the kids every Sunday afternoon so I can have a break. It's also a great bonding time for them.
Since he is not one that can sit down and read a book to the kids type, he decided to do sports with them. This way, they will be out of the house and I can have about 2-3 hours of ME-time too. This arrangement suits all of us fine. I am not very sport-active type, so I gladly hand over this "Physical Education" programme to hubby.
Their usual activities? Swimming downstairs.
But with little Nicholas becoming more active, it had since progressed on with more intense exercise. They usually starts with some "warm-up" exercise like playing with the basket balls. With 3 of them, they took 2 balls and do those passing game. Hubby says this helps to improve their hand-eye co-ordination. Little Nicholas is too young to play this game, but he doesn't want to be left out. So he played the "Monkey" role.
After the warming up, hubby makes the 2 girls run round the track twice. Its a proper running track which means the girl ran 800m each! Hmm..doubt I can do even half the track now.
After taking a break, they will come back up and change into your swimsuit and go back down again. This time, to swim.
So you can guess, by the time they are back for dinner, they were like those "hungry ghost", gobbling down the food real fast! And they are so tired by bedtime that I do not need to keep asking them to stop talking and go to sleep. They knock-off within minutes of lying on the bed!
Hubby took some photos for me to see what they've been doing and I like this particular one. However, hubby said this photo doesn't come easy as he had to retake so many times to catch little Nicholas cheeky smile. But its all worth it, don't you agree?
Last week, the centre did with the kids a Rectangle collage and the children were required to tear the paper and paste them on the paper. Little boy had some struggle in tearing the paper initially but after teacher showed him how to do it, he tried a few times and succeeded! He was then happily tearing all the papers away.
Its a very good activity for his fine motor skills development and teacher encouraged the little ones and parents to do this activity at home as well. But they have to be reminded that they are not to tear papers at home unless an adult tells them so. Or else they'll be happily tearing all the papers in the house. Hehehe....
The centre organised an excursion to Kid's Kampong last month and this being his first excursion, got my helper to go along with him too. Little boy had loads of fun doing longkang fishing, feeding the Koi fish, chickens, ducks, goose, rabbits and tortoises. Little Nicholas was even brave enough to carry the rabbit.
*Phew* Finally finished whatever needed to be done and I'm back home. hubby was a little worried about the situation in Bangkok and was glad I'm able to catch the plane back home.
My boy was so funny this time. When he saw me at my MIL's house, he just sat there and laughed (non-stop)..it was such a funny sight..too bad, I was so amused by his action that I totally forgot to record down the cute moment.
MIL said he gone crazy from missing me..so he kept laughing when he saw me..
