Bossy Pants

Now that the weather is officially mucky, being neither here nor there, but just unbearably humid, the pools have opened up again and swimming season has started.

My playdate moms and I went to the LRC (Ladies' Recreation Club) with our kids in tow, all geared up for a good swimming session. They've got a cute kids' pool right by the playground which is really good because the kids can splash around, and then go have a swing at the playground when they feel like it (makes for very wet slides though).

There's a rain bath erected above the pool simulating a rain shower so the kids can go under and have a giggle fest. And there're plenty of water toys that the kids can play with. 

My son was particularly interested in playing with a Lightning McQueen car which he kept dropping to the bottom of the pool. He kept trying to retrieve it but couldn't do it without having his head go under the water. I told him, just close your eyes and go under and reach for the car. The next thing I know, he's instructing, or rather, ordering, his friend Dominic: "Dominic, get me the car! Just close your eyes and get the car!"

Later, he saw some toys that got trapped in the vent on the side of the pool and wanted to get them. He tried a couple of times and couldn't do it, and promptly yelled for Dominic: "Dominic, over here, get me the toys!" and stood by the side watching Dominic reach (unsuccessfully) for the toys. 

I had a good laugh watching the boys in action and Dominic dutifully following my son's commands. Good thing his mom found it funny too.

Too Big for Diapers

Last week was HUGE for my son. We started real potty training!

Admittedly, we've been a little late with this. We've been doing half-hearted potty training for the past 4 months or so - we'll ask if he'll like to go to the potty and if he says no, we'll leave it at that. We've not had him not wear his diapers - which really is step one of potty training, so your child knows what it feels like to be wet and uncomfortable - so I'll say we've not pulled out all stops yet. Until now.

The reason I've not been dead serious about potty training so far is because...well, it just seems too much of a hassle. I'll rather change his diapers than have to constantly deal with taking him to the bathroom. I'm not a fan at all of public restrooms and the thought of having to get him to go to one of those without him touching any of the surfaces, coupled with trying to keep his pants from falling over, just seems waaay too much work. We also had a few overseas trips lined up, so to wrestle with public bathrooms in another country, whilst having a non-schedule since we'll be on vacation, just didn't seem to be a good recipe for serious potty training.

But now that he'll be hitting 3 in a few months (where did all the time go?!), it's now or never. I bought an excessive amount of underwear, in all kinds of fun characters that my son loves (Cars, Bob the Builder, Spider-Man - you name it, we've got it), and starting Monday last week, he went without his diapers.

He goes to nursery in the day and his teachers have been really supportive - they have no problems with helping him change if he gets wet, and they said they'll do it as many times as needed. 

As testament to my son's resilience, on Day 1, he did not pee at all for 8 hours! The nursery has scheduled bathroom breaks during the day - around every 1.5 hours, they'll bring the kids to the bathroom. Joshua went every time and stood there but held it in - for 8 whole hours! He finally inadvertently got wet, and cried and we went home on Day 1 feeling frazzled and a little discouraged. At home, he kept up not wanting to go to the bathroom and we spent all night cleaning up.

On Day 2, he refused to go to the bathroom and started having a MAJOR fit, he screamed and yelled, turned red in the face and his whole head was soaked in sweat because he was so worked up. I was genuinely stressed out about this - is this normal in potty training? Are kids supposed to have such an adverse reaction? I didn't want him to have a negative association with going to the potty. Of course it didn't help that one of my friends said that a friend of hers (six degrees of separation!) who inadvertently went overboard on the potty training with her child ended up with her child still being in diapers at age 4!

After much cajoling, he finally agreed to go without his diapers and off to nursery we went. Miraculously, on Day 2 at nursery, he improved by leaps and bounds - he did well at the scheduled bathroom breaks. Day 2 at home was also good - we didn't need to bring him to the bathroom every hour or so, he would let us know when he needed to go.

By Day 3, he'd pretty much got it down pat. By Day 4, we went without diapers even for bedtime (he now wakes once in the night to go to the bathroom). Apart from Day 1, he's stayed dry and has had no accidents. His performance in the past week has way exceeded what I was hoping for in Week 1 of potty training. 

This has been a miracle, and a huge relief.  I thought I would be lucky if he could get this in a month, or two weeks, but he seemed to have gotten it in 3 days. I was really concerned about potty training because my son just didn't want to do it and wrestling with him is frustrating, not to mention not knowing how much is too much - when do you keep persisting and not cave, and when are you pushing your child too much such that it becomes a negative experience?

I don't know if I'll ever quite get the hang of parenting.

Bringing Back the Sashimi

It's been a while since my last post - my baby girl has been battling major sleep regression, waking up every 30 minutes both day and night. It's been a big hurdle that we're slowly working through and a story that I'll save for another time.

I managed to get out of the house for a while sans kids, and I had a good day today. I had sushi for lunch! Which is worthy of mention because

a) I managed to have some time to myself and have a leisurely meal (albeit by myself), and

b) it's the first time I've had raw fish in close to 2 years.

I love sushi and sashimi, but cut them out from my diet when I was pregnant with my baby girl. I've been nursing since and decided to err on the side of caution and continue keeping raw fish out of my meals. I'm still nursing but since my sleep-deprived mind is no longer able to function very well, I treated myself to sushi today. It was extremely satisfying and a simple pleasure that went a long way in making my day.

Alcatraz - TV Show

I've recently caught the new TV show, Alcatraz. I read about it in Entertainment Weekly and was eagerly anticipating its arrival. The show had a compelling storyline and with JJ Abrams behind it, sounded like a hit TV show in the making. I'm a huge fan of Lost, which to me, is hands down the best TV show, period. JJ Abrams did a phenomenal job of creating an alternate world and kept viewers guessing right till the very end on what was going on. 

Anyway, in short, Alcatraz the TV show is about how over 300 inmates and prison guards disappeared from the Alcatraz island prison without a trace. To cover up the disappearance, the government invented a cover story about the prison being closed, due to unsafe conditions, and officially reported that the inmates had been transferred. These inmates start returning in present-day San Francisco, having aged not a day, and with no idea of where they've been.

Sarah Jones stars as the titular character Rebecca Madsen, and I'm on the fence about her. I don't dislike her nor do I like her. I think her problem is that she doesn't seem to have chemistry with the audience, I find that I'm not particularly interested in watching her and I'm not rooting for her in any way. In Chinese, we say she has no ren yuan (loosely means 'fate with people', which otherwise can be translated as a lack of the X factor).

But now, her hair. They've given her a bob haircut with long side-swept bangs that has practically half her hair falling down one side of her face over her eyes. I'm trying to grow out my bangs and find them terribly irritating, how they keep coming into my eyes, and it's all I can do to stop myself from either tucking my bangs behind my ears or to sweep them up, of which she does neither in the entire show, which is testament I feel, to the tremendous will power she must have in order to resist doing a gesture that is so instinctive when you have this much hair falling in your face. Not only that, she also doesn't walk with her head tilted to one side, as people with a long-bangs hair problem tend to do. And she does this all whilst chasing down criminals, jumping off roof-tops, shooting from great distances, and tumbling from bombs going off. This girl is having to doing some serious acting while grappling with unwieldy hair!

Jorge Garcia plays Dr Diego Soto, who's Rebecca's sidekick and presumably the comedic relief in the show. Jorge Garcia was Hurley in Lost and he was so endearing as Hurley. He's still Hurley in Alcatraz, but more laughable because he's still a bumbling kind of guy, but whip-smart - his character is a geek who's totally into Alcatraz inmates and their disappearance, hence he's some sort of Alcatraz expert extraordinaire, but it just seems a tad ludicrous.

Sam Neil plays federal agent Emerson Hauser who's leading the task force in tracking down the inmates who have re-surfaced. It took me two or three episodes of watching this guy before it finally hit me that he's the guy from Jurassic Park. Ahhh...that's why he looks so familiar! So that's where you go after being in an epic blockbuster.

The show overall is kind of all over the place. The premise is a good one but the creators seem to be trying too hard to keep the mystery of the series just that - a mystery. So instead of answers, each episode sets off on chasing down yet another inmate and covering their back story. The lead characters all seem to lack chemistry with one another, so the show seems to kind of plod along. So much promise, but so poorly executed. It seems unlikely that the show will be renewed for a second season, so I guess we'll never find out the big mystery on what happened to those inmates.  

The 6th Month Baby Milestone

My baby girl is 6 months old today! Half a year old!

My husband and I were just remarking that we can't believe how quickly we've come to this milestone of starting solids. It took forever with my son to reach it. Especially since he had reflux and needed to be on medication and everyone kept telling us the reflux will get better once he's older and starts taking solids. The first six months crawled by for us with him. And now in a blink of an eye, our baby girl's ready to eat!

We've been thinking about what her first food should be. It feels like such a big moment, the first time she will ever experience taste in a whole new way. And texture too. And all kinds of wonderful things. For me, the power of taste, together with olfaction, bring me back to memories of home-cooked food, of happy care-free days growing up in my family. 

We gave our son avocado as his first food. It's supposed to be an excellent first food because of its creaminess and texture, and it's a good fat food that can aid in a baby's brain and physical development. I remember he was all excited to see this green mash on a spoon making a beeline for his mouth, and he was so eager to taste it.

I thought we could give our baby girl the same first food but my husband is quite adamant that she's a different baby and she should get her own first food which she can rightly claim as her own. So we've decided on sweet potato for her. Which is a pretty orange and yummy to boot, so I figured we can't go wrong.

She's been very interested in watching us eat, she always stares at us with really keen eyes when we're having dinner. And when she manages to catch our gaze, she'll give a really big grin like - hey, how about throwing me some of that?

We got her all ready for lunch today, and got the camera and video ready to capture the moment. And once my son realized what we were doing, of course he wanted to be the one to feed her, which he did, but then he shoved the spoon too deep into her mouth and she started to gag and choke and...well, it wasn't pretty.  We have it on video and this will no doubt be priceless for the kids to watch when they're older. 

My good-natured baby though seemed none the worse for wear once she had recovered from the brotherly force-feeding love, and she was game to have more sweet potato. She expertly rolled it around her mouth and even looked like she was chewing. And so we're off to an excellent start with solids for our little baby girl.

And she's growing up all too fast!