Week 181 motherhood – feeding self, Learning Together Conference, recovering from another cold

3 year old’s first time drawing “mommy”

Week 181 motherhood with 3 year old and 14 month old:

February 29 to March 6, 2024:

Ah, both kids are not better and I don’t want to get anyone sick at EarlyON so we decided to stay home. Boo. I really wanted to attend the Stories, songs, rhymes in Cantonese program at EarlyON. I want to show support for the Cantonese programming because I want them to continue hosting them. Last week, we went to the Mandarin one and I wanted to participate in this Cantonese one too. Ah, well. It’s not the end of the world. I’m glad that we finished the 4-week Twinkle Toes program though.
The kids didn’t have too much of bad runny noses but I just don’t want them sniffling in front of the others. And I wouldn’t know how bad it is until we get there and that’s not good for the others either.
The 1 year old didn’t want to nap in the car seat today so I napped with her for the first time in a while. Nap trapped.
We participated in part one of the Learning Together Conference which was online on zoom. It was 2 hours long and various educators from the school boards came on to speak about kindergarten, how it is play-based learning, and Hannah Beach did a really great segment on play-played learning, “void moments”, and told stories of her own kids which was really informative and helpful. I hope the other 150 or so families who joined the conference got as much out of it as I did (well, I could have gotten more out of it if our house was 100% quiet). I am looking forward to Saturday’s conference!
I like their very appropriate “It takes a village” song that was played as waiting music (and during the in-person conference too).
When getting to vote for the poll about how we feel for our kids going to kindergarten in September, the options were “excited”, “worried”, and “prepared”. I voted for “excited” which was what most of the other parents voted for too. The least voted for was “prepared” lol.
The 14 month old has taken an interest in using pens and crayons and trying to do what her big sister does.
The 3 year old is showing advanced showing skills when she did a stick figure picture of me with a proper face and body and a “mustache”.
We had a medium-sized cardboard box for a big haul of peppers this week from Flashfood and the kids liked to take turns riding in it as DH held them and carried them around like a ride. It was fun for them. The 14 month old “rode” in it like a bumper car too.
This week, the 14 month old has begun feeding herself! She likes to hold the small green transparent bowl with her left hand and then use the small white spoon in her right hand to feed herself things like rice, cereal, and drink milk! So great. She likes being independent.
On Saturday, we attended the afternoon session of the Learning Together Conference in north Richmond Hill. It was from 1 to 4 p.m. It was such an amazing, well-planned and put-together conference! I actually didn’t know what to expect and I wish they gave us a lay of the land/agenda before arrived. I knew that when I registered, it mentioned a free lunch but I wasn’t totally sure.
When we arrived just a little bit before 1 p.m., the child actually passed out in the car and took a 20-minute nap — which was great for her to be well-rested. I’m also glad that she didn’t throw a tantrum when she woke up. We walked into the high school where the conference was held (such a giant and nice school, by the way) and checked in at the registration table. We got an EarlyON tote bag with lots of resources and 3 books. Everyone there was so nice and smiley and open. The child got a sticker that said “Hi, my name is ____. I’m going to kindergarten” which makes it so real for me. I also got a sticker with my name on it that listed the two workshops that we had registered for that day.
Along the hallway of the school, there were various booths set up from different programs across York Region, including Richmond Hill library, EarlyON, and many others. There was even a photobooth set up too for us to take photos with! We did a quick walk through to see what there was and was able to get a free toy, free books, voted for the best time and day of the week for the Journey to Kindergarten class (for their research and planning purposes for the upcoming sessions), and then peeked in the cafeteria. We didn’t see any lunches yet so we strolled back into the “vendor hall” to see what else there was to do. We saw our friends arrive too and took a photo at the photobooth. When we peeked back into the cafeteria, I saw people with lots of food on their tables and realized there was in fact lunch served! Yay! We went into the cafeteria kitchen area where there were sets of pasta salads, wraps, sandwiches, mac and cheese, and drinks set up for us to take. Each person was given a choice to take one of each item. So generous! All the options were so healthy too. The pasta salads included a barley rice salad, couscous salad, and pasta salad. The wraps were turkey, egg salad sandwich, and a hot mac and cheese. The drinks were Dole apple juice, orange juice, pineapple cocktail, or water. There was coffee available too. So amazing!
We took a seat and ate our lunches. The 3 year old sat in her own chair and sat from the box of mac and cheese so nicely. After a while, Heather Young spoke and so did some other representatives from across the region. We did the land acknowledgement and an active dance session where the guy simplified three popular songs into dance moves that kids could understand. “Sunshine, moonlight, disco points”. So fun and easy for the kids. It was pressure free too and you could participate if you wanted to. Then we were given the classroom numbers where we would go for the two workshops that afternoon. The first one was at 2 and the second one was at 3 p.m. I also really liked that they had a calming room for any of the kids who felt overwhelmed at any time and need a break from it all. So thoughtful. They thought of it all!
Our first workshop was the “understanding separation anxiety” one. It was really good because I really think it gave a physical understanding to what it meant to be away from a parent (on the first day of school). I loved that everything was catered towards the child going to school for the first time in the near future. All the kids were 3 to 4 years old for the first time in this surrounding. Usually at the EarlyON programs, the ages can range from 0 to 6 or 2 to 6. It was nice for the child to see other kids her age. We saw a kid who was wearing a penguin shirt — which happens to be a pajama top that our child has too!
The facilitator read The Invisible String book to the kids; we followed along with our copy that we had in our bag and then they made bracelets! The parents made a bracelet for the child and the child made a bracelet so that on the first day of school, they can exchange bracelets and know that their love is there for them even when separated. It’s so meaningful.
This is the first time that the child has done beading and she took to it right away. She was very focused and perfectly capable of stringing the small beads on to the string. I really enjoyed this activity too. It has been more than 20 years (as a child) that I did beading. It was really fun. I made one with her name on it (so that when she wears it to school, everyone knows her name lol) and DH made one with her last name. The child chose beads that she wanted and some letters like W, K, N, Z — ones that she knows lol — so funny. But she did say that she didn’t want to wear them, so go figure lol.
Then we did some “invisible hearts” painting where you draw a heart with a white crayon and then paint over it. Then the heart will reveal itself. Cute activity. The child was the last one in the room as everyone else soon left to go back to the cafeteria to get ready for the next workshop. The child is really focused and takes her time with these arts and craft activities.
I was able to chat with the facilitator there about the child and my worries about her attending school for the first time/being by herself and away from us. I don’t know why but it’s starting to become emotional for me. I didn’t anticipate that it would, but it’s really becoming real that my baby is attending school soon. Anyway, the facilitator said that her own child was similar to mine where she needed to be warmed up too. She gave me some tips like to get in touch with the teacher and to have her send me updates about her throughout the day if possible so I know how she is doing. She advised to go to the school park and play there to get similar with the environment (we have done this already). She said it will take time.
At the next workshop, it was “Managing big feelings”. In this one, our friend was in the same class which made it nice to attend together. The facilitator read The Color Monster book to them (also a copy that we received inside the tote bag). Then the facilitator dictated colours that the child should colour for each monster on a sheet of paper. The child was just happy to receive markers to colour which; she didn’t care which colour was supposed to be for which number. Some of the other children in the class were the same too. I found it very restrictive for them to have to colour each monster a specific colour. Nevertheless, the second activity was to make sensory tubes where the kids could choose what colour of glitter they wanted inside the tubes and then pour bouncy balls and transparent glue in them and seal them up. Upon shaking them, you could see the balls and glitter float around. It’s supposed to calm the kids.
Again, the child took her time to make the sensory tube by combining many different colours of glitter and watching each ball bounce down the funnel. She was the last one to leave in this workshop too. She really enjoyed making this sensory tube.
However, I found that the workshop didn’t really teach me as the parent much about “managing big feelings”. It’s not an easy topic and one size doesn’t fit all. I did talk to the facilitators about it afterwards and she did give me some tips like praising positive behaviour and giving it more attention than negative behaviour. This is something I know but need to do more of, so it’s a good reminder. She commented that the child seemed nicely behaved, but I said that most of her big feelings come during home time — like hitting her shoving her younger sister, feelings of jealous, etc. I don’t think I remember her giving much tips about that, but most of it is just praising the good behaviour and not letting the negative behaviour become the only thing that is being fussed about.
We returned back to the cafeteria where we had the closing ceremony. They drew the raffle too — my friend ended up winning one of their generous prizes.
I liked that the tote bag included a simple but ingenious activity where they gave a dry-erase pen and a clear board for the child to draw and erase to their heart’s content. The child really liked using this when we got home.
Both kids dug into the tote bag for the 3 new books (oh, they also read the third book The Kissing Hand during lunch time too. It’s so interesting that we happened to cover all three books that day. If other kids didn’t attend the two workshops that we did, would they have read the other 2 books at their respective workshops?). The 14 month old was especially curious about the books.
The 14 month old is way more into reading these days than before. Yay! She likes to climb into my lap with a book and have me read to her. Her patience is not much and she will stay for a page or two. She likes to flip the board books and usually flips more than one page at a time — she doesn’t know how to separate the thick book pages just yet. But I’m really glad she’s more into reading than before.
We celebrated DH’s parents’ 43rd wedding anniversary this past weekend and booked a private room at the restaurant. This turned out to be a great idea because the kids were able to wander and walk circles around the table in between the meal and afterwards. The 14 year old loves walking around once she’s done eating and this was perfect. It was really cute to see her older 2 cousins walking next to her too. Precious moments. They will never be this young and this small ever again. Have to take the videos and photos when they’re together.
The 3 year old had to sit on grandma’s lap basically the entire meal. She did finally sit by herself when it came time to eating the cake though.
The 3 year old doesn’t like to sleep in her own room by herself much anymore. She’s been sleeping in grandma’s bed together for most nights. Every since we came back from Hong Kong, she hasn’t enjoyed sleeping in her own room because she said it’s too dark. We had to get her a night light. But now she just likes to sleep in grandma’s room so… shrug.
My cold got worse after the first initial days. I was coughing much more and so we stayed home this entire Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday too. No EarlyON until we’re all better. The 3 year old knows how to wipe her nose to catch the slimy boogers. I had planned for us to attend the closer Markham ones this week. Too bad. Another shelving of them (I don’t know why we just happen not to attend them) until another week. And now that we’re into March, we’re another week closer for the child to attend her Journey to Kindergarten class!! I’m so eager and excited but also nervous for her.
We went to finish registering for the 3 year old’s kindergarten class this week! We went into the school to give in her official documents. It’s done and official now. She’s registered for kindergarten for September!! Ahhh.
The 3 of us went at lunch time. We saw the 2 receptionists and also received a warm welcome from the principal as we were on the way out. We observed kids’ lunches on the countertop and pizza being distributed as well. I’m glad she visited and saw what the school looked like from the inside for the first time. We told her that this is her school for September.
The 3 year old still does this nasty thing where she shoves her sister sometimes when she’s not happy that she took something of hers or just not happy with her in general. DH tries to raise his voice with her but I know it’s not something he’s used to. Grandma asks her which hand she used to shove her sister with and she’ll reply with “no hands” (because she knows she will get consequences if she tells which hand — sneaky kid). But also recently, she’s learned the meaning of “taking turns”. She let her sister nurse on me despite being in my lap first. I praised her and said she was good for letting her sister have her turn. It’s such a hit and miss with this child.
The child also accompanied me and grandma to the bank and was completely fine with us. She ate her snacks and even stood by the glass door by herself and was fine. Less shy and clingy than before.
The 14 month old ran off and walked by herself during a buffet dinner. DH had to run after her and held her. This child has no boundaries and no fear. We’re thinking that we might have to get her a child leash…
This week, the 3 year old changed her own diaper. Come on, when are you going to want to wear underwear?! She keeps refusing still. But we know the time is coming. She knows when she wants her underwear changed. She can even do it herself. Six months to go until September when school starts, my dear.
Being active on my social media/blogging regularly means I’m not physically active/not staying on top of my steps. DH and I also haven’t been able to watch any shows together either because once 14 month old has fallen asleep, I escape to either blog or do my social media posts. It’s hard to juggle and stay on top of all 3 things: blog, exercise, or watch shows at night together. When will the 14 month old sleep through the night by herself?
Also, it’s a toss up as to: do I want to do my blogging or do I want a full night’s sleep? If I fall asleep with the 14 month old, I can sleep from 10 p.m. to 8-9 a.m. usually (and my sleep scores are beautiful, like an average of 85 points). But if I choose to wake up after she’s fallen asleep around 10 p.m. or in the middle of the night around 3 p.m. to do some social media work, then I don’t get my full night’s sleep. Choices, choices.
This week, the 3 year old has liked to search songs herself on my YouTube app to listen to. I point her to the Susan Salidor songs (singer of the “Tap Your Toe and Follow Me” song) because her songs are slow and harmonious. Now, she can tap her toes and is a more active mover when I play that song than before. I guess it took time for her brain to connect with her body parts and for her to know what and how to move them. Good job, baby. The 14 month old likes to move to the beat too.