Playing with the large Connect Four

Week 173 motherhood with 3 year old and 1 year old:

January 4 to 10, 2024:

• We attended 3 back-to-back EarlyON classes this week!  Now that the baby is moving around constantly, it’s easier to have her play at the EarlyON environment than at home.  She’s more stimulated there.  The floors and carpets there are clean so she can also crawl to her heart’s content.
• We were late in arriving to the session the last two days.  We still had a full hour’s worth of play time though.  It was worth it — time flies at EarlyON whereas it doesn’t fly as quickly at home lol.
• On the third day, the toddler was throwing a huge fit in the car because we could not immediately find one of her stuffed animals that she holds and she cried all the way to the centre.  When we got there, grandma and the baby went inside while the toddler wanted to stay in the car.  She had a snack and then when she wanted to wash her hands, that’s when she agreed to go inside.  We were able to join the circle time part with some singing and dancing and then play for 30 minutes.  (She actually threw a fit on the second day when we were driving there too.  She said she didn’t want to go to EarlyON but when we got there, she was fine and went in to play.)
• Mom and I had a massage and then followed by lunch (while DH had the kids with him at dim sum with his parents), so our lunch turned into a nice lunch date.  We haven’t had this in a long time.  (I also had a very good massage session which gave me faith into the massage centre again — the previous times, the therapists used so much force that it felt like torture and the massage wasn’t relaxing [even though I know some pain is good].)  I couldn’t believe that DH was able to manage both kids on his own during dim sum at a restaurant.  It’s not easy when all of us together, so I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for him to do it alone.  The grandparents don’t help (because the kids don’t allow them to hold them), so just wow.  DH said that the toddler sat in her own chair to eat and only after a while did the two start fighting because the baby was touching the toddler’s hair, etc.  He survived.
• The baby is standing frequently now and taking more steps by holding along edges and counters.  She moves so quickly.
• She likes to throw her hands up to show that she can stand independently.  Her little wiggling butt while crawling is still the cutest.  I need to get a video of it before she starts walking.  We anticipate she’ll be walking by next month (at least that’s my guess).  Grandma thinks she could be walking by next week.
• The baby also enjoyed sitting on one of the small kid’s chair too.  She copies and does so many things that we do.
• When the baby is playing with something and the toddler doesn’t want her to play with it, the toddler will say, “Mm bay hui wan!” and keep repeating it.  The baby used to not care and play with it but now she will cry and scream when she hears her sister saying that.  Sometimes she’ll stop and move away from the toy but sometimes she’ll “voice” her opinion back too lol.
• When we take our multivitamins from the cabinet, she wants to look at it too and keeps pointing at the cabinet, but that is a space that the kids are not allowed in.  She keeps pointing and grunting to it anyway.
• We have been working on getting the toddler to sit by herself in a chair independently when we’re home or at a restaurant.  She doesn’t like to do it and prefers to sit in our laps.  But it means that the adult doesn’t get to eat comfortably and she can’t always sit in someone’s lap.  We didn’t give in and let her cry it out at a restaurant this weekend during lunch.  She still didn’t want to sit in her own chair though…
• The toddler has been playing with the digital camera again that was gifted to her for her birthday.  She also has been asking me to take photos of her angle by angle as she turns and makes different poses and faces.
• The toddler this week has been enjoying her peach yogurt in the small green bowl and mixed with water.  She asked for it multiple times.  She also has been enjoying the chocolate milk that I got recently in the TGTG surprise bag.
• I gave the toddler a haircut and I love the way it looks this time on her.  The new fringe and shortened locks really give her face more focus and definition.  When we complimented her, she beamed and was so happy.  She said she “wanted to be pretty”.
• The toddler has been painting with the new spill-proof paints that her aunt got her for Christmas.  She has been creating artwork with it.  I’m glad she doesn’t have to be prompted to draw or paint anymore because there was a time when she said she didn’t know what to draw.  She’s been making “cards” for grandma and us.
• This week, when it’s time for the baby to take a nap in the afternoons (she’s either napping by 11ish if she wakes up at 8 a.m. or 1 to 2 p.m.ish if she woke up at 10 a.m.  Or for the afternoons, she naps around 4 to 6 p.m.), we put her in the car seat to sleep.  When she’s really tired, she will not resist and fall asleep really quickly.  This way using the car seat (although experts don’t recommend leaving a baby to sleep in the car seat), I don’t have to nurse and lie next to her in bed.  Usually, it means I’ll fall asleep too or I’d be nap trapped.  The room is so dark that it’s not good for my eyes to keep using my phone like that and even though if I get to nap and rest, it feels like I’ve wasted a part of my day).  But mostly this way, I was able to spend time playing with the toddler instead.  I realized that she might have been acting up recently because her cup hasn’t been filled enough.  Thus, I spend the time to focus on her and read with her or just be with her.  I think it’s helped.
• My own grandma had her 102nd birthday celebration this week.  What a milestone.  I can’t say how many more celebrations we’ll have with her like this and she’s fairly alert and healthy for the most part (but not verbal or aware who’s around her), but I’m grateful that both of my kids are 3 and 1 years old and have their great-grandma around.  At least in photos, they’ll be able to see that they were in the same room together at one point.
• During the dinner banquet, the baby was quite fussy and also didn’t wave or be as social as she usually is.  We were there from 6 to 9 p.m.  No wonder the baby was fussy and acting up; it was way past her bedtime.  At home, she usually cries and wants to get a bath by 8:30 p.m.  By 9 or so, we’d need to head up to bed.  Kudos to both kids for behaving as well as they did.  They also played with the Water Wow activity book; both of them!  The toddler coloured in the pages with her water pen and the baby followed her and tried to do the same thing.
• We didn’t “force” the toddler to sit in her own chair during the dinner.  We had been working on this but due to so many family members around, we didn’t want her crying and whining during the dinner and she sat on DH’s lap while the baby sat on mine.
• We made the mistake of not putting the baby in the booster chair with grandma early.  Once I started to hold her, she wanted me only and didn’t want to part from me.  It was such a tough dinner to sit through (and eat — I couldn’t feed myself).
• EarlyON Creative Chefs class!  The toddler “made” falafel wraps this time.  There was barely any cooking or “putting together” at work for this class, which was disappointing.  The facilitators had prepared falafels in a bowl, cut-up pita wraps in a bowl, strips of cucumbers in a bowl, halved tomatoes in a bowl, and hummus in a bowl.  All the kids had to do was gather each item and put it on their plate and then roll it up to eat.  They didn’t even provide a knife for them to spread the hummus on.  I’m going to give my feedback to tell them that this isn’t “cooking class” if all the kids do is gather the foods to eat themselves.  They could have let the kids cut up the tomatoes themselves.
• Anyway, it was the first time the toddler had a falafel.  We have eaten it before once but I don’t think she had any.  The toddler ate the wrap and then left the last bit because she was too full.  She also said she wanted her dad to try it lol.  So I packed it up and DH did try it at home later.
• This time, for the first time, the facilitators also didn’t allow the baby to be in the classroom.  She said that now that the baby is mobile, they have small objects in the classroom that aren’t suitable for those under 2 years old, so she asked us to bring the baby to the other unit where there was a Family Stay and Play session happening (suitable for 0 to 6 years old).  Grandma brought the baby over to play while the toddler had her chefs class.
• After eating, the toddler was wondering what her sister was playing with.  Thus, I asked her, “Do you want to go join your sister in the other classroom or do you want to stay here to play?”  Surprisingly, she told me she wanted to join her sister in the other woman.  Wow, I was so pleasantly surprised.  The facilitators commented on how she sweet was to want to join her sister.  That was a first for me too.  It’s nice to know that despite her fighting with her sister at home that she actually truly likes the baby and wants to be with her.  When talking about our family unit, the baby is included too.
• During playtime, the toddler engaged in pretend play by wearing a veterinarian costume for the first time.  She wore it for a few seconds, walked a bit, and said, “Good, now I’m done”  (“ho, wan yuen”) and wanted it off lol.
• The giant Connect Four toy was a new toy there.
• The baby loves exploring the EarlyON space and seeing what things she can touch and play with.  Usually, she is so distracted that she doesn’t want to nurse even if it’s feeding time.
• The toddler still likes to “pump milk” for her dolls by taking one of my pump parts and pretending that she’s pumping.  She’ll say, “Oh, I see a drop of milk come out” “I have 3 drops of milk!”  And then she’ll feed one of her dolls with it.
• The baby continues to clearly say “ma ma” when she needs me.  It’s the cutest thing.  Now that she is eating more solids, she doesn’t need me for milk sometimes.  She’ll just want me to pick her up and suck for less than 10 seconds and then continue playing and exploring the house.  The floor has to be sparkling clean these days (so I’m vacuuming twice a day) otherwise whatever garbage she picks up on her clothes, that will be on me because I’ll be nursing her lol.
• The toddler also likes to change into her PJs when we come home.  That’s what me and grandma like to do too.  I do not feel comfortable lounging around at home in street clothes.
• Grandma has termed her number twos as “little hills”.  The toddler still doesn’t want to potty train, so we’ll just keep going with this.  I surely hope that by summertime she will want to wear underwear.  The countdown to kindergarten has officially started.  (In fact, we will be doing the registration next week on the 19th!!)
• The toddler likes to weigh herself on our bathroom scale when she is in there sometimes.  She currently weighs 30.6 pounds.  She is getting over the 30-pound mark!
• This week, she also has been wanting to be in the bathroom with me when I shower.  This is nothing new.  She did this when I was pregnant with the second baby too — back when we would go on walks and I took a shower after the walk and nobody else was home with me.  But she vocalizes wanting to be in there with me to watch me shower.  I mean I would love to have the me time to shower by myself, but it is what it is.  All stages and phases come and go.  (There was a time when she liked to close the lid of the cups for the buddhas and fill up the cup with water but thankfully that stage passed too.  I would always have to wait for her to do it and toddlers always take their time.)
• Speaking of which, the toddler enjoys putting on her own clothes these days.  She will pick what she wants to wear too.  Thus, we have to allocate extra time in the mornings before we leave the house before she will want to put her mittens on herself, her own socks, her own shoes, etc.  It takes so much longer when they do it themselves but of course they’re learning and it’s necessary for them to be independent.  We have to exercise extra patience.  Grandma is proud and in awe that she is do it herself at this age.  This goes to show that she always helped me when I was younger and/or I never expressed an interest to do it myself?  Or maybe she has forgotten after all these years.
• Oh, and a big thing this week has been DH “renovating” their room to combine both areas into one.  The toddler kept shutting the baby out of “her house” (her carpet part of the living room) but yet would freely go into the baby’s “house” (the fenced play area), so DH got rid of the gates completely.  Now there was no division and separation between the areas and they had to play together.
• The baby is really into music still.  She likes when the musical play mat is on and will grunt and point to it so that we turn it on if it’s off.  She will wiggle and move her body vigorously too.  Where did she learn to wiggle so quickly like that?  Also, the toy teapot plays music as well.  The baby will hold it and want me to turn it on so that she can dance to it.
• I feel like I know how to interact and play with the toddler more so than the baby these days lol…  But then again, I can just put objects in front of the baby and she will touch it and explore and play with it so I guess there really isn’t a way to play with her.