Play Dates to counter pre-School Anxiety

Recently Ning has been refusing to go to school. She cries vehemently when we leave her. Even her friends don't entice her as much as her Mummy Papa.

Read some suggestions that maybe arranging play dates with hwr school mates may help.

Am going to try getting her class mates parents contact for play dates. Never done this before. Wish me luck!

Ning @ 23 months

She has quite a number of songs in her repertoire, including:
Finger Family,
London Bridge is Falling Down
Pat-a-cake
Rock a bye baby
And some Chinese songs only Lougong knows, too complicated for me to remember, I only know the tune

Ning is also very expressive giving specific instructions to get what she wants. E.g. If she wants Mummy to go out while Mummy is lying on soda reading, she will say...
1. Mummy get up from sofa irst
2. Mummy stand up
3. Mummy come (holds Mummy's hand)
4. Ning put on shoe first
5. Mummy take key (sometimes with 'please')
6. Mummy open the door and Ning go out say hello to Kakak and come back ok?
This is the part Mummy have to come up with some excuse or oblige.

She's also eating much more nowadays. Almost one full adult rice bowl of rice with dishes.

She also just had first stomach flu from childcare (8 vomiting cases reported since Ning). She started throwing up after going to bed. We bathed her because her whole body was covered in vomit. Then she nursed again, and threw up again. And Lougong had to change the sheets and blow dry.

Mummy changed her and we moved into next room. She had more milk and tried to sleep, but she threw up all the milk again. Lougong complained I 'overfed' her. So he made Ribena for her. This time we wiped her and changed her. And she just vomited again after Ribena. So we gave up, pat her to sleep. After 45 minutes, she coughed and threw up again. This time on our last dry mattress. I didn't dare sleep lest she threw up in her sleep and choked on her vomit. The moment she started, I'd prop her up. At one point, she didnt want Mummy's milk and insisted on Ribena. This carried on til 3am after which she slept til 06:30am.

We went to the clinic twice. Once her Ning and myself. Second round for Mummy and Papa. Thankfully she stopped vomiting after the medicine. At least the food reaches her stomach, right? Right, then she started diarrhea. Still better than vomit. I've learnt to be very grateful. Sigh. She's still uncomplaining and not even a whine heard throughout the ordeal. I was petrified when she went limp and her head flopped from side to side at one point. I almost begged Lougong to bring us to the hospital, but he reasoned she has no fever, can wait til morning. I couldnt sleep, kept checking her breathing and heartbeat. Both her fast and strong. I'm just glad everything is fine now.

On retrospect, we should've taken turns to monitor her. Instead I watched her til I sleep while Lougong busied cleaning up and then slept.

Cooking again and 3rd morning without nursing

I've been cooking again, after clearing some obsolete stuff in the kitchen and getting some new cookware.
The microwave was sold.
Now we have a Zojirushi Micom 5.5 cup rice cooker and a 6L thermal cooker. The rice cooker makes perfect porridge and rice. It's not too big that it feels overwhelming to wash.
We've 3 main types of menu:
Steamed fish (usually salmon) with ginger juice, capsicums and spring onions
Slow cooked soy sauce chicken with dong Kwai
4 vegetable soup (carrots, potatoes, tomatoes and corn)
So far, the rice cooker is most used. Haven't really used the thermal pot for many soups. Have bought a steam rack for rice cooker, so maybe can have soup and meat :)
At the same time, Ning seems to be eating more now. We found out she could eat half of square bowl full of rice, pork and soup when she had dinner at Aloysius, Brian and Claire's home. So we also target that amount. So far, she's almost always finished her portions, compared to half or less that she's used to.
It's more work and tiring, but seeing her eat and grow makes it worthwhile :)

Simple sentences & fave phrases @ 22 mths

Mummy play hide and seek with Papa.
Ning Ning's water bottle straw.
Mummy sit there.
Mummy eat fish ball.
Mickey Mouse fall down on the floor already.
Mickey Mouse see helicopter.
See mosquito bite on elbow.
Put milk in this water bottle (sigh, after I made it in her milk bottle, at least she'll drink it).
Take off panties/nappies first (before toilet).

Where is moon?

Mine!
Mummy! (and repetitions)
Papa!
Wake up!
Let's go!
Don't want doggy wow wow! (after fierce dog barked at her)
Open door. Take keys first.
Playground!
Go playground!
Put on blue shirt.

And she's VERY friendly and clear.
She's pointed and named people quite clearly:
Kakak
Abang
Gong gong
Jie jie
Go go
Uncle
And sometimes, most embarrassingly, AUNTY!
A well dressed 30s lady looked so embarrassed when called aunty that she pretended not to look at her.

So now it's Jie Jie unless Jie Jie turns out to be Mummy, then it's Aunty.

Sorry, sorry, sorry! Ok...

Yesterday, I accidentally put my knee on her left hand while kneeling down to sit beside her. It must've been very painful, because she started crying instantly.

Mummy kept apologizing, while she was crying, and kissing her hand.

Then, suddenly she said, "Ok" and stopped crying.

I love this girl, she's forgiven Mummy.

She seldom cries, even when she hit her head last week she cried for a few seconds, and the bruises looked very nasty for that one.

Shower Pals or Toys

It's becoming more common now for her to choose a dry toy (meaning, not meant as a bath toy) to accompany her to the bathroom for a shower or bath.

Today, she picked the big plush teddy bear that she just "rediscovered" from the bedroom.

Mummy undressed her and said, okay, you can pick a toy to shower with.

And she immediately picked up and said "bear"!

I was a little surprised because she usually picked the rubber penguin and squirrel. The plush toy would take a couple of days to dry, and might smell if not machine washed immediately after.

So Mummy explained, that the bear will take a long time to dry, that she can pick another toy. Penguin, squirrel, or even the Mula cup with hole inside and watch the water leak out. She still picked the bear, and pleaded "bear". Mummy explained again, then told her to pick again, and went to bathroom to check on the water level in the tub. When I peeked out, she was already entering the bathroom with her usual pals, the squirrel and penguin.

Mummy's so relieved she didn't go confrontational. Feeling mushy now, didn't feel it just now. I love this little girl.

She eats more with company

Today, she had 2 more playmates than normal. Popo and Gong Gong.

She drank 60ml of fresh milk, had loads of teaspoonfuls of soup with bee hoon (short strands, no piling), some tomato and a shred of chicken.

Popo asked her if the soup or bee hoon was nice, and she said, "ya!". Popo kept going at it, and she kept smiling, nodding and saying "yep".

Mummy's pleased.

Today, we went down as usual, but Ning quickly wanted to come up again. I'm guessing the thunder and dark skies are frightening, or she wants to go home to Popo and Gong Gong.

So, here we are. Mummy will try to feed her more tomorrow!

Great morning!

Mummy didn't need to cook, except for some macaroni to go with the leftover cabbage with chicken soup from yesterday. Though she did not eat much, just nibbled a bit of strawberry and a sip or two of soup with yolk, we watched 15 minutes of BabyTV and off we go. We walked Papa to the MRT station, and sat on the koala bear ride on the way out. Papa let go twice, and I think it was just nice because she wanted out by the time the second ride ended.

After that, we went to KFC for chilled milo and had a bit of A.M. Twister there. An old man, really old and wrinkled and bent, sat beside us, greeting Ning with hand. Ning slowly got up and climbed onto Mummy. The old man exclaimed in Hokkien, what little courage she had. In my heart, I thought, that Ning was a smart girl, she knows when to be careful i.e. a stranger that's too friendly.

After that, we went into Guardian to window shop. She picked a few items, and Mummy put back a few items. All in all, it was pretty smooth.

Then we went up to the food court because she wanted to go up the escalator. That's when another stranger said heatedly that I would break her arms if I did not hold her from the underarms (instead of her hands). I thought that that was amusing, a bit on the rude side, but amusing none-the-less.

We went around looking at the foods on display, she wasn't that interested because she couldn't touch them.

And then, we reached a little ramp. We walked down the ramp and suddenly it was like a light bulb lit up in her head. She pulled me up, then she walked down again, walked up, then down, and walk backwards up the ramp and then backwards down the ramp. Well, Mummy was as delighted as she was that she found something so simple so amusing and fun. However, the passersby were not as delighted. Mostly concerned I'd let her walk into someone holding something hot I guess. So, Mummy told Ning we could go to another ramp.

When we reached the other ramp, she ran up and down a few times, then got distracted. She climbed 16 steps all by herself, holding the handrail. We walked home. Half way home, she wanted "up", so Mummy carried her. Then she said, "head" and tapped on Mummy's head. So Mummy praised her, "very good, head". She kept at it and nodded a few times before Mummy realized, she wants to "sit on Mummy's head", she was waving arms and feet when Mummy guessed right and put her up on Mummy's shoulder. She waved at a couple of ladies passing by smiling happily away, and those ladies were also laughing and waving back.

We got home, had a bit of red bean soup, showered together, and she slept after suckling for 10 minutes.

What a great morning!

Hitting Mummy (with books, palm, etc)

Mummy is bruised in the right eye from Shay Ning's hits.

Okay, I'm partly to blame.

I'm tired and sleepy, and she wants to read. When a nudge and "Momma" doesn't get her what she wants, she use the book to hit Mummy, usually in the eyes. As if willing me to wake.

Yesterday's hit was quite heavy, board books, and I can feel a deep bruise under the right eye. I was furious, said "That was painful!", took the book and threw it into the cot, out of her reach. Then turned away. She looked taken aback, then she tried to kiss me. Awww. Felt so guilty right after. I got up immediately, wake myself up, wash face, and played with her instead of wishing she'd take a nap.

Sigh, the joys of motherhood.

Ouch.