Egg bites and cucumber lemon water at Creative Chefs

Week 196 motherhood with 3 year 9 month old and 18 month old. 

June 13 to 19, 2024:

• The younger one is officially 18 months old/1 and a half years old!  It feels like she’s already at this age for a long time, strangely.
• She loves playing with my FitBit.  DH finally had time to figure out how to turn back the heart rate monitor on.  I actually stumbled on to that setting before but don’t know why I couldn’t find it myself recently.  She loves revealing the “running man” icon.  She waits for me to say “pao bo”.
• In the Mommy loves me 123 book, she likes to hear me say “ball” so she can try to repeat it too.  She says it in the most baby-ish way.  It’s hard to describe.  She says things with a high pitch at the end.  “Bawllll”.
• There was a squirrel that was laying on our fence and the younger one saw it and was shrieking and pointing at it.  She loves animals, whether in real life or on the TV screen or a stuffed animal.
• This week, the older one made egg bites at the Creative Chefs class.  I brought her to the class myself.  This marks a huge win and another baby step forward because this marked the first time I was able to tell her to an EarlyON class BY MYSELF.  Three months later since the incident.  Sigh.  She walked in by herself holding my hand.  Unfortunately, she didn’t want to do any of the food prep or cooking this time.  I had to help her.  Oh, well.
• It was interesting to see her pick the paper plate with a floral print way down in the pile.  There were white plates on top.  Even the EarlyON facilitator noticed it.  Keen eye for details.
• Grandma and the younger one were at home to oversee the basement reno and DH was at the office.
• The older one needed to be held during circle time when we were doing dancing.  She still isn’t comfortable yet.  When I try to tell her I’ll be right next to her and stand next to her, she brings her hands up to be held and starts to spiral.  So I don’t want that to happen and that’s why I end up carrying her.  Otherwise she will just throw a fit and no one will be happy.  I’ll just hold her until she is more comfortable.
• She came with me to two grocery pickups too.  She stayed in the car for one (a quick TGTG pickup).
• She likes to eat in the car these days.  She will take out her lunchbox from her lunch bag to eat and snack.  She doesn’t like to eat with others at EarlyON.
• The younger one loves eating the oatmeal cookies.  Lucky for us to get some half price off from Flashfood.
• There was the Father’s Day event at EarlyON on the weekend — just like how they celebrated Mother’s Day last month.  The staff prepared French toast and bananas and lemon water for everyone.  (Last time they had waffles and assorted fruit and hot chocolate.)  After eating, everyone was asked to play outside where they set up many different stations for play like painting the canvas, red sand sensory table, books, cars and ramps, and so much more.  It was so well done and elaborate.  The weather was perfect too at about 22 degrees and very sunny.  Both kids liked the painting activity with the canvas.  I think it was the first time that the younger one used a paintbrush like this.  We had to be careful with where the paint drips fell because they would stain (temporarily) their clothes and hands.
• The older one loved playing at the table with the red sand.  She was so engaged with it.
• Another child actually took away the plate that my daughter was playing with.  I immediately took it back from him and told him that my daughter was playing with it.  I hate that the kid’s parents are never around when this happens.  The kid’s parent was off somewhere and wasn’t paying attention.
• The younger one had a lot of fun walking on the wooden bridge.  She found it a challenge to walk up and down it because it was grooved and not straight.  She would smile and laugh when she landed at the bottom.  Too cute and pure.
• DH had our once-in-a-month date night again (yay, love this new tradition) and actually spent all 3 hours of it eating and talking.  It was necessary because we had a tense week of emotions and stress due to the environment around us.  It was really good to talk and clear things up.  I don’t know how we can stay sane without these precious one-on-one evenings.  It’s necessary to stay on the same page about our family.
• When we visited DH’s mom at the hospital for Father’s Day lunch this week, the older one also held off on eating until the grandparents had left the room.  She didn’t feel comfortable eating with everyone despite her favourite dim sum items on the table.
• The younger one noticed elevators and wanted to get on them (remembering them from the cruise probably) but of course we didn’t go on them.
• We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory to further celebrate the holiday.  Both kids were so good and enjoyed playing and looking at stuff at the pharmacy while we waited for a table to be ready.  After eating, they spent a good chunk of time walking and running through the mall too.  The older one reunited with her love of going up and down escalators.
• The nursing room at Yorkdale Shopping Mall is huge and so spacious!  I like that they had a built-in stool for kids at the sink to wash their hands too.  Still surprised that even kid-friendly places like Disneyland in Hong Kong didn’t have things like this.
• We had our third Triple P session with the educator.  We kind of slacked on our homework for week 2 but did notice improvements (like the child walking by herself and me taking her to a class for the first time by myself) and regressions (like her holding out on eating) and shared them with the educator.  Week 3 is about managing your expectations for things — knowing a positive, negative, and realistic side to everyone will help us shape our view in life.  Need to verbalize and talk to the child more about these things to make her understand.  The educator reminded us to focus more on the milestones and to praise her when she is doing something great.
• Huge DD haul this week.  I gave away so many cookies, chips, crackers, hot sauce, and snacks!  We saved some for ourselves too.
• For two days in a row, we went to the same Family Stay and Play location.  The child still said, “I don’t want to be alone” every time we were in the car on the way to the location EXCEPT for the second day when she knew that we were going to the same place.  Wow.  That’s another milestone too.  I am following the educator’s advice in the Triple P program about attending the same EarlyON locations so that she will be familiar and comfortable with the setting and know that nothing bad is going to happen.  I think it is working.
• Both kids loved the water table (coloured orange).  The younger one always likes to play with the water in the kitchen anyway.  She also loves to play with the kitchen sets, always pouring water/tea out of the small teapots into cups haha.
• While we were playing, another small girl came over to yank the teapot out of the younger one’s hands.  Uhh… and again unfortunately, her mother was not around her to see this happen.  I didn’t want to grab it out of her hand to return it back to my child because the mother would have only seen the last part and think I was bullying her child or something… My younger one was looking at her and didn’t know what to do but waiting for the teapot back to play with.  Poor thing…
• It’s not like she reacted or started crying or screaming.  She could have.  She actually should have to show her displeasure.  Something to teach her going forward.
• The younger one liked to feed the baby dolls milk with the baby bottle.  So cute.  She always knows what to play with every time we arrive.  She goes from activity to activity.  And then she passes out quickly in the car when we leave because she’s so tired.
• During circle time, grandma had a phone call to attend to.  For the first time, I had both kids with me during circle time.  Thank goodness the younger one was accommodating because the older one wanted to sit in my lap.  The younger one stood beside me and I held on to her.  No other choice.  The older one didn’t like her sister sitting on my other lap.  She only wanted her to be on my lap.
• Basement renos still going… can’t wait for it to be done.  But then it’ll be a big task to move everything back down and REALLY declutter by that point to make sure most of it doesn’t go back into the basement.  We need to throw away more things.
• It’s been in the mid-30s all week.  It was so hot in the house that we turned on the AC.  The child’s hair was wet and she said her neck was wet with sweat too.
• I feel like she’s more mature now when speaking and expressing her thoughts.  Maybe the switch will kick on soon where she will suddenly want to use the potty/toilet.  I know we can’t force her so we are patiently waiting.  At least until August.  And then that’s when we will really HAVE to do the training.
• She’s been more independent and walking by herself and wanting to hold our hand instead of being held.
• However, many times, because she likes to be held to the car, we end up forgetting to bring her shoes.  Good thing the EarlyON site was close to where we parked so we didn’t have to walk too far while holding her.
• Thanks to the facilitator at Seamless Transitions who e-mailed us about it, we also attended a Zoom workshop called “Many Faces of Anxiety” at night.  It was two hours long and actually very informative and full of great insight.  However, I was so tired that I fell asleep halfway into it.  I realize there’s a lot of resources like useful YouTube videos I can watch to educator myself about anxiety in children.
• A coincidence that this week, we had three online matters to attend to.  One was a video call with DH’s cousin about organizing the upcoming family reunion, one was me attending an online workshop for my steno transcript things, and the third was the anxiety Zoom workshop.  We haven’t had these in a while and suddenly all these online commitments popped up this week.
• This week also, the younger one started “hitting herself” on the arm.  Whenever she provokes her older sister, sometimes grandma will ask her which hand she used to touch her sister and to “hit” herself as punishment.  Now when this happens, she hears us say it and she automatically does it of her own accord 😂.  It’s so funny.
• She also always likes to furrow her eyebrows and have a disgruntled look on purpose sometimes.  It’s too cute.
• The older one is in the habit of making crossed-eyes and “side” eyes.  When she does this and I mention it, the younger one will sometimes blink her eyes.  She wants to copy her sister but doesn’t know what crossed-eyes or side-eyes is yet, so she will blink her eyes lol.
• It is adorable sometimes how the younger one will wake up in the morning and say a single “ma ma” like a good morning to me.  It is the sweetest thing.  I wish I could have it recorded but I wouldn’t know when she wakes up to say it.  She doesn’t always say it either.  These are precious moments I want to remember forever.  It’s the way she says it too.  Not perfecty “ma” but in her own little baby way for now.  It’s sweet like honey.
• We started doing the thing where we ask her “Who is [her name]?” or “Who is a tiger?” and she will raise her hand.  It’s super cute and the older one used to do this too.  This week, she sometimes liked to shake her head and refuse to do it lol.