The toddler making significant artwork at an EarlyON session

Week 150 motherhood with 2 year old 10 month and 7 month old: 

• July 27:  We just came home from an EarlyON session of “Rhymes, songs, and stories in Mandarin”.  The facilitators were so great and my head is full of the songs playing in my head now.  There were so many new songs that we heard.  Kudos to the facilitators because it was such a great program!  Just like yesterday’s class which was in Cantonese though, there were so many babies too.
• July 28:  We attended yet another EarlyON rhymes, songs and stories class!  This time, it was in English.  I love that the two facilitators were so enthusiastic and warm and catered to the children.  The main facilitator was able to tell that the toddler was reserved and unwilling to participate sometimes and tried to include her by modifying the actions a bit.  I don’t know why the toddler doesn’t like to be hugged or tickled when we do those types of huggy and tickly songs.  I liked that the facilitator used different props too.  She had a big book for “Brown Bear, Brown Bear” animal puppets for the “Old MacDonald” song, parachute blanket at the end, soft balls for “popping” like popcorn on the parachute, bubbles at the end (the toddler finally warmed up by then to want to touch the bubbles), the freeze dance song (a different one than the one we’re used to), moving songs for the babies, a colour song to identify the colours that everyone was wearing in the room.  She was fantastic.
• We picked up another used double stroller from fb marketplace!  This one is from Joovy and lighter and convenient for travel which we will be doing more of in the near future.  We got it for just 100 bucks.  Yay!  We test drove it around the neighbourhood yesterday when we got home.  The baby sat in the car seat in the front while the toddler sat in the back.  She actually can’t see much from her view and she says she prefers the “old stroller” the best.  The “old stroller” is the single passenger one from Graco.  We know she likes that one the best because she can recline in it and rest comfortably.  She always says she likes that one anyway.  It was nice to test out the stroller.
• Aug 2:  The toddler is coming out of her shell gradually bit by bit.  She agreed to go on the swing in our neighbour’s yard and then even agreed to visit their backyard trampoline, horse ride toy, and play in the sand with the neighbour’s kid!  Ah, so nice to see!
• We did a family Zumbini class on the weekend.  It was a nice space that the EarlyON program chose where all the kids were able to dance and move around in.  The facilitators were so engaging and happy too.  They called out all the kids names individually for a “hello” song as well as a “good-bye” song which was the first time I’ve seen.  I wish though that they had a mic for the facilitators because the large room made their voices echoy and got lost in all of the commotion and sounds.
  • The toddler was not eager to participate in the dancing, but us three adults did.  Grandma had a bit of a workout too which was great.  The baby was strapped to DH’s chest for most of it and she liked watching everyone move around.  The music was a tad loud from the speaker/boombox and I noticed one mom brought her small baby out of the room too because the noise levels were probably too much for the young one’s ears.
  • I liked that in addition to singing and dancing, we were all given different tools to aid in the song and dance too.  We were given little balls, small shaker balls, wooden sticks for tapping, and drums.  It was a wonderful active session!
• These days, the toddler wants me to take photos of her using my phone.  She requests and I take it and then she later wants to look at them.  She continues to always want to look at the train photo of her at Fantasy Fair too.
• The toddler has been actively drawing with chalk at the chalkboard.  She can draw circles and lines and draw a “dinosaur” with a face too.
• The toddler does really good with us at restaurants.  She can wait while we choose items from the menu, wait for the food, and then wait for us to distribute the food to her before she eats it.  She has improved so much in terms of eating with utensils, has a good appetite, and can eat independently too for the most part (especially when she’s hungry).  Sometimes, she wants us to spoon feed her.  I’ll do it because I want her to eat enough and be full.
• When we’re out eating, we usually don’t have anything to give the baby to eat and she will look at us with longing and watch us eat…  Next time, we need to prepare something for her too because it’s not fair that we all get to eat and she doesn’t.
• The baby this week has been continuing to eat through baby-led weaning and holding foods in her hand to suck and gnaw on.  She does it so well.
• We picked up a free umbrella stroller from marketplace this week. 😀  We plan to use it when we are at the airport before boarding.
• The Creative Chefs class this week in Aurora was about making yogurt parfait.  It was a surprise to me because the original menu was supposed to be chocolate cake in a mug.  No matter, because it turned out well.  What I loved this week was that there were substitute “teachers” or facilitators who ran the program.  Both facilitators were so caring and kind and truly invested in the programming.  (I wish they were the original ones instead!)
  • I talked to one of the facilitators and got her advice on the issue of the toddler being jealous and not wanting to share toys with her baby sister.  She told me that it’s normal at this age for her to be ego-centric and that it will improve with time.  But for now, I can try to show the toddler that “I’m giving this toy to you and this toy to your sister” to show her that she can play with different things when offered.
  • On the topic of bringing the toddler to daycare/preschool (something I’ve been thinking about recently because I’m afraid the toddler will have a tough transition when she goes to full-time kindergarten next year), she advised that daycare is not for every family and that only you as the parent know what’s best for your child.  She said that some kids have grandparents at home and will go straight to kindergarten without any previous programming.  Otherwise, she said it’s great that my toddler is attending EarlyON sessions and it’s the best thing we can do for her for now.
    • I have noticed she’s improved so much in terms of being around others.  She was quietly playing with the maze bead toy next to me as I chatted with the facilitator, something she wouldn’t have done a few months ago; she would have been scared and would have had to hide behind me or something.
  • Same thing when she sat next to the other kids eating yogurt after they made it.  She wouldn’t have sat next to the other kids at the same table a few months ago (wait, actually she did when we made fruit skewers lol).  But still, she’s improved quite a bit so far with all the EarlyON attendances.
  • The toddler really enjoyed making the very simple yogurt parfaits.  The kids were given a tub of yogurt, granola, and fruit to scoop into their own little plastic cups.  The toddler carefully transferred the yogurt, granola, strawberries, and blueberries into her cup and ate them scoop by scoop with the plastic spoon.  She enjoyed it so much she went back for seconds too.  She especially liked the crunchy granola (something we don’t really buy to eat at our Asian household).
• We attended another EarlyON session “Fun with Science” the next day at another location (a new one we haven’t been to before).  I liked how there were two levels here, one for the younger infants and one for the older toddlers.  The facilitators were nice and enthusiastic here too.  The toddler learned to thread yarn through a piece of rough cloth, looped rope through metal hoops, played with magnets, played with a weigh, played with some water, kitchen play things, and drew with fat crayons on a piece of paper.  So much to do!  There were a lot of little kids here too; lots of infants again.
• At the end, we did circle time with some rainbow hoop tools and another version of the “freeze dance” song (how many versions are there?!).  The facilitator asked what songs the kids wanted to hear and the toddler said she wanted to hear the “bus” song which is “Wheels on the bus”.  I answered the facilitator, but she did not hear me several times.  The toddler wanted to hear the song…  When we lined up to leave, the facilitator was so warm and friendly that she snatched up the baby and held her for a while.  She asked us to come again to this location (because she knew it was our first time there).  It was at that point I told her that the toddler wanted to hear the “Wheels on the bus” song.  She asked “why didn’t we speak up” and I said I did but that she didn’t hear me.  She started singing two verses of the song right then on the spot.  Love facilitators who do this!  The toddler was happy inside (but you could never tell because she didn’t crack a smile at all).  I’m glad we ended up hearing the song after all because the toddler would have been a little sad and she would have talked about it the entire way home too.
• The baby is so good with anyone holding her; a little dangerous for potential baby snatching actually lol.  She smiles at others and initiates it too!
• When we were at the dollar store and lining up to check out, she smiled at the two men behind me.  One of them wasn’t even the “baby” types, but she made him smile and got him to “talk” back to her lol…
• An annoying scenario happened at the dollar store.  It was the first time that both kids could sit in a shopping cart (the baby could sit by herself!).  We were in an aisle where grandma was browsing items and just out of reach from the baby.  I was with the toddler just a metre away looking at toys.  A lady in front of me looked back at the baby and said, “That baby is going to fall”.  Um, no, she was not.  She was strapped in.  I said, “No, she’s secured in.”  She responded with a “Yeah….” as in being sarcastic and doubting it.
• Okay, here’s the issue.  From her angle, she couldn’t see that the baby was strapped in by the armpits securely and sitting in the shopping cart.  She couldn’t see the seatbelt.  She probably only saw the baby tilting sideways (because she was playing with her foot at the time) and decided to JUDGE me as a parent for apparently leaving my baby to fall out of the cart.  It’s far from the truth because grandma and I were both there.
  • Why do strangers feel the need to judge and comment on a parent like this?  I told DH this when I got home and he said that if he was there, the woman wouldn’t have made that comment.  She made that comment as a woman to another woman and probably thinking she was above me and judging me as a “bad mom”.  I hate that.  Double standards in society.  Women judging other women when we should all be less judgmental and not being rude with these comments.
  • A better more kinder comment would have been, “Hey, I’m worried.  That baby looks like she’s about to fall.  Is she strapped in?” instead of the rude, assuming comment that she barked out.  It was made worse because of her sarcastic trailing “yeah” at the end too as if she didn’t believe me that the baby was strapped in.
  • I was caught off guard and it’s not like I’m an defensive mode all the time; I was out leisurely shopping with my kids!  In hindsight, I could have swung the baby around in the shopping cart to show her from the other angle that she was definitely snugly secured in.  How infuriating!
• I noticed that I have new baby hairs sprouting out!  New hairs from the crown of my hairline.  Yay!  However, I still have bad postpartum hair loss after every time I wash my hair.  I lose so much hair still.  However, it’s nice to see some new hairs sprouting out.  I didn’t have significant and obvious new hair growth the last time I was postpartum; it’s definitely interesting to see.
• Now that DH is back to work in the office three times a week, the toddler chooses me more often to play with her or do things for her.  DH is a little sad about that.  It also means he is more appreciative of the times that he works from home and the times that he gets to spend with them.
• The baby sleeps so well on our bed after I nurse her from side lying that DH has been sleeping on the sofa more and more these days…