Week 189 motherhood – “snake talk”, final JTK class, copycat, cutting food with scissors

The finale of the Journey to Kindergarten program at the Thornhill EarlyON location

Week 189 motherhood with 3.5 year old and 16 month old.

April 25 to May 1, 2024:

This past week, the little one has been babbling and “saying” things and I’ve jokingly called it her “snake talk” which is more appropriately so in Cantonese (“sey wa”/ 蛇話). It sounds like gibberish. She is moving her tongue and repeatedly doing it to make sounds which is awfully cute at the same time. Every time I ask her to say “sey wa”, she launches into it. It’s so cute. I recorded it because it’s definitely a memory I want to preserve.
The 3 year old had her final Journey to Kindergarten class at the Thornhill location this week. It was definitely a class we did not want to miss and I’m glad we made it there. The facilitators are so sweet. They planned out the final class to be a party! They had cupcakes, tangerines, and bear paw cookies for the kids and a sweet graduation ceremony with music! The kids took photos with the parents in front of the JTK 2024 banner too. So sweet!
Before this, the parents made the graduation caps with black Bristol board (with a cute tassel too!) and assembled a gift bag of toys (with the note that they wrote for the child’s hopes and dreams in week 2 — I wasn’t there so I wrote one up). So thoughtful! The kids exchanged their gift bag (with things they made during the 6 weeks) with the parents. I really wish we had been there for week 2 and week 5. These facilitators and the way they planned this program were absolute gems.
I also had another chance to vent out the child’s story. I was already over it but since we were chatting in the classroom, I was able to tell them what happened with the child and why she’s been so clingy and unlike herself these days. It just so happened that these two facilitators were the ones who R A N the JTK training for the facilitators for all of York Region! They were enraged and in shock about what I told them. They had adamantly done the training and told all the staff NOT to separate the child from the parent with force. They were just in disbelief and shock. I bet they had a lot to say after our meeting because it’s like all their hard work fell on deaf ears. Some facilitators had just old dogs who can’t learn a new trick unfortunately.
Most importantly, I felt HEARD and validated for the first time by the EarlyON staff. They completely understood and knew where I was coming from and emphasized with me about what happened.
They told me that going forward with my child for September, I will have to be firm and pushy about her needs. If she needs to have kinder start off with half days, then I will have to advocate for her. Yes, they’re right.
Now that the storm has passed and I’ve had time to mull over this, I absolutely need to advocate for my child. I am a passive one. That’s just my personality. But I need to stand firm for my child because I know her best. She is a special one indeed and unfortunately even childcare staff don’t know what’s best for a naive and innocent child these days.
Anyway, I’m glad though that the JTK program has come to an end. This means that we can start rebuilding the child’s trust in the EarlyON programs again by attending the regular programs like Family Stay and Play and hopefully she will get back to that spot where she trusts the facilities and facilitators again.
We had a playdate with a dear friend finally this week. I finally got to meet her newborn daughter too! They have so many more toys and activities set up since our last visit; she joked it is like an EarlyON there. Her boy is fully potty trained now and I was hoping that he would inspire my child to go to the potty. Well, it’s not like she doesn’t know how. She knows when she has to go, how to pull up and down her pants, and announces it but she just is refusing adamantly to go. Time will tell when she wants to finally do it on her own terms.
I got a lot of great ideas from her house too. We’re going to get the big visual magnetic timer. The cereal dispenser is a great tool too. Her son wakes up by himself and eats breakfast by himself in the mornings! The left and right stickers in the shoes is genius. The weather gadget near the door is super cute too.
The 16 month old refuses to let us trim her fingernails still and we can only do it when she is napping. It’s difficult to remember though and her nails are very long…
DH finally repaired the learning tower. Yay! Now the kids can go on it again. They can wash their hands in the sink without using the chair or stool (more dangerous).
We were actually signed up for tree planting this weekend but because it was forecast to be raining all evening and morning and because DH had a cold and the kids were not all well either, we decided to cancel the plans. We had done two prior tree planting events before.
May 1: The little one has stopped speaking “snake talk” when we ask her of it. She’s so fiercely independent and only wants to do things she wants to. She will frequently shake her head no or whine or throw her head back to cry dramatically when she doesn’t get what she wants.
The 3 year old is more fond of me again. She’s been asking me to read to her and wants me to play with her more often. I hope this means I’m gaining her trust again.
She loves reading. I can’t believe she actually can sit through 80% of the Peppa Pig stories book. It’s a really long book of multiple short 5-minute stories! I’m glad we are growing a bookworm and lover of books.
The 16 month old likes reading books too. She likes more of the flap and open tab books. She isn’t as patient as her older sister when it comes to listening to books but it’s already an improvement from when she was younger.
Now that DH has fixed the learning tower, the 16 month old wants to climb on it often and play with things on the counter again.
The kids were playing before dinnertime with DH in the family room and holding hands together. I can see the benefit of having them be 2 years apart. They will definitely grow up together. I’m really glad they will be. Despite the hot and cold temperatures from the older one, I think it’s just a phase and they will definitely enjoy each other’s company as they grow older.
May 1: We had the Playful Math class and this time, all 5 of us attended. This was good because we slowly transitioned/reverted back to the days when grandma attended with us to EarlyON and the child was okay playing with grandma again. DH brought his laptop and was able to work on the side and didn’t even need to sit with us. I was so content chatting it up with a fellow mommy friend while the 16 month old was sitting next to the kinetic sand box and playing. Grandma did notice and comment on how much more clingy and unnaturally clingy the older one is now ever since the JTK Markham incident. Sigh. But at least I can now see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I love the Thornhill EarlyON staff. Even for Playful Math, they incorporated simple yet educational approaches to learning math for the kids. They had shaped drums where the kids each did a “pattern” and shared it with the circle, then put the various shapes in the air when called, and then we did the probability game with the balls where we tried to throw them and get them to stick to the hula hoop which had tape in it too. They didn’t sing the cute math songs this time. I would have wanted to listen to them again this week so that I could remember/Google/YouTube them later.
It was funny because the 16 month old looked very bewildered while attending this EarlyON class. I guess it’s because I hadn’t taken her out to one in a while and she wasn’t sure what to do or how to behave. It’s okay, little one, mommy will soon bring you out to more again.
The 16 month old always copies and imitates what the older one is doing. If the older one has to have a diaper change, she will touch and point to her own diaper too and wants to be change (even though she was just changed too). Or if the older one needs her hands washed (from eating food), then she will point and want to have her hands washed too.
The older one loves using scissors to cut her food these days. She likes to do it herself. This is a big phase. She used to watch us cut up food for her but now she can do it herself.
The 16 month old is more vocal these days and shows a lot of preference for certain things that she wants or doesn’t want to do. She is becoming a typical toddler now… uh oh. Now that the older one is approaching 4, I hope that –like others have said — she calms down with her tantrums and is more logical/easier to reason with. But now that the younger one is growing up, she is approaching the tough stage (“terrible twos”) that the older one is growing out of. Ahhhh.
The 3 year old loves putting in snacks herself (choosing them) into her lunchbox for when we go out. This way, she can pull out her lunchbox by herself (out of the alligator lunch bag) to eat in the car.
Whenever she sleeps, she has really loud snores! I don’t know if it’s because she has a stuffy nose or not but usually when she is tired from us going out or playing and she has passed out, her snores are loud like an adult’s!
The 16 month old has not been willing to sit in her high chair the past week during dinnertime. DH has had to hold her while eating.. She’s in a phase.
The 3 year old plays with the Grimm’s set occasionally. I am impressed when she does because she actually plays with it by making squares that fit together. This is no easy task because the blocks are different lengths. She is figuring out math essentially.
Yesterday, she used one of the wooden IKEA kid chairs and put the blocks on top of it to make it fit together. I had to call DH over to see because she perfectly fit all the different lengths of blocks into the square of the chair base. So neat. Whatever small spot she didn’t fit, she looked around for a smaller cube to try to fit it. Really neat.