Terrible Two

Recently, I have been trying to keep my sanity and cool every other day. I have always label myself as those hands-on mums who prefer to handle even the most nittty gritty matters when it concerns Zaccheues. In short, I am the working mother by day and the educator, discipline mistress and the Civics Moral Education (CME) teacher at night. I see all these as my duty as a mum to impart the right knowledge and values to Zaccheues. At times, I might grumbled, complained and nagged but most of the times, I took my duties with pride and stride.
However, I think my patience is running low towards Zaccheus these days. He is not behaving as well as I would like to. At times, Zaccheus would throw his toys on the floor, hit his cousins and even DS and myself. He would also refuse to apologize for his mistakes. Things were made worse when he constanly whines and cries whenever I don't give him what he asks for. Initially, I was still being patient to him by explaining to him why he can't have certain things. But his refusal to stop at times drove me so angry that I shouted at him and even hit his hands. Many a time, I feel like a lousy mother who can't discpline my son well.
One day, I chanced upon few online articles talking about 'terrible two' stage in a child's growing up years. According to the websites, toddlers at this age tend to exhibit certain negative behaviours as part of the 'terrible two' process. The articles also give useful suggestions for parents. After reading it, I was feeling so relieved as I now know I am not the only parent going through this, and also the problems do not lie with my son but rather it's a general problem accross this age.
So few days agao, I laid down some ground rules and set up a refelction corner in the house. I went through each and every rules with Zaccheus and told him the consequence (reflection corner) if he doesn't conform to the rules. I hope to let him understand about the cause and effect of his actions. So far, Zaccheus has been behaving well except for occasional whines and cries. Having said these, I will continue to be a dedicate mum to all his needs and developments. At the same time, I am also casting my fears, nervousness and eagerness on God and relying on His strength to pull through this 'terrible two' process.

A great bonding time @ Sentosa

As it says 'A picture paints a thousand words'. These photographs depict a wonderful bonding time for our family of three. DS and I look forward to another such great holidaying in Phuket in December...


Building sandcastle at the beach


Lazing at the cafe


An exciting ride on the luge


The day ended with a nice dinner @ Hard Rock Cafe

Slowly!

Whenever Zacch ran too fast in the shopping mall, DS and I would tell him to go 'slowly'. As such, he picks up this word easily. But the funny part is, he used this word on DS whenever he was driving too fast. Take for example, tonight, when we were on our way for dinner in DS car. Zacch suddenly told DS, "Daddy, slowly!" in a demanding tone. And he even repeated few times to bring his message across to DS. That always brought laughter to both DS and I. :)

Affectionate boy boy

Zacch has always been affectionate towards people he likes and he outrightly portrays it by hugging and also kissing them. At his grandma place, he always kisses & hugs his cousins to bid farewell or to comfort them. At our home, he kisses DS & I for everything, be it morning or bed time kiss, when in pain or even when he wants to apologize for his mistakes. At Godma's house, he kisses from po po to yi ma to yi yi to Godma each time he bids goodbye to them. At our friends' house, he hugs & kisses his little friends affectionately too.
At times, I am worried that his "too" friendly behaviour might cause complains from overly concerned parents. There was once my colleague jokingly mentioned that my son should attend all boys' school for fear of complains from his classmates' parents with being too affectionate towards their child. Haha... Mummy has to admit that my cutie boy has always been particularly friendly towards his little friends than adults. At any time, he is more willing to hug & kiss his friends than Aunties or Uncles... And I don't think DS and I will stop his too affectionate display of love for other people so long it doesn't get out of hand... :p

Reading is Good!!

I started Zaccheus with the habit of reading daily when he turned one. I have read online and in newspaper and magazines about the benefits of reading and hence, determined to inculcate the love of reading in Zaccheus. But I was not keen with buying many books and pile up at home as they are not only costly but also taking up spaces in his room. So library became the avenue to get our supplies of books. I do know of few friends (mothers) who are not advocate of library books because they think the books are dirty as they have been passed from one child to another. I do agree with this point, however, I am more of agreeing that there are more benefits to borrowing books from library than to purchase them at the stores.

As such, Zaccheus and mummy have been diligently visiting the library every week to borrow books. And we will borrow between 8-10 books each visit and everyday, we will set aside some time to read books together. To encourage Zaccheus to love reading books, I even rope in his favourite soft toys such as Dorathy the Dinosaur and Alvin chickmunk to sit beside us to read the books together. Zacch was always elated and put the soft toys nicely beside him, sometimes even kissing them. I am proud to say that this reading habit is still ongoing and Zaccheus has definately like reading books. Today, I do not have to remind him to read books, instead, he will turn to me and tell me "Mummy, read books". And of course, I will be more than happy to read to my lovely boy.

The habit of reading has definately paid off. Zaccheus's command of vocabulary is beyond his age. He recognizes and understands many words that it makes me amazed and impressed at times. Some examples of "bomabastic" words that he could recognize and read out are marrow, planet, comet, yatch, caterpillar etc. And not to mention, he could also recongnize and speak elementary level words such as school, church, helicopter, banana, bag, staircase etc. I remember 1 month ago, I brought him to AMK Hub for a walk. And as we walked past the taxi stand, he kept telling me "train", and I looked at the taxi for awhile then I realised he was actually linking the advertisement "SMRT" to train. Next, we passed by an advertisement about Singapore Zoo and without hesistation, he said "zoo". After that, we walked passed sticky rice restaurant, pepper lunch fast food, Subway and Mcdonald. Again, as we walked past each store, Zacch said "rice", lunch", "way" and "mcdonald". I was clearly impressed that he is able to recognise so many words. Reason why he did not say 'sticky' and 'pepper' was because we have never come across such words in the storybooks we have borrowed so far.

Having said that, I am once again a proud mother to know that my little darling has inculcate a reading habit and also benefitting from it. Reading is GOOD!

Zaccheus 2nd Birthday

Zaccheus turned 2 on 20 June 2010. Months before his birthday, I had been thinking whether should I organise a kids party for him or book an external venue such as Gogo Bamibini to celebrate his birthday. My extravagant and illogical personality told me to go ahead as it is an annual event and what most important is, our little darling is happy on his BIG day. On the other hand, my frugal and logical side of me told me to celebrate frugally for few reasons. Firstly, to prepare for Zacch's exorbitant school fees starting next year, secondly, we recently spent on a holiday trip to HK and lastly, not to make it make it a point to spend so much on his birthday celebration every year.

The decision was an easy one. I chose being frugal and decided to hold a simple but warm celebration with family members and friends whom are dear to us. And being a Thomas & friends train fan, the theme was obviously Thomas & friends train cake and matching clothes for Zacch.

Despite being a simple celebration, Zaccheus had great time playing with his cousins and blowing candles from the Thomas & friends train cake.:) Once again, I want to wish my little darling a belated blessed bithday and may the grace and favour of God be upon him.

Zaccheus's fourth overseas trip - Hong Kong

Gong gong once said:" Zaccheus is barely 2 years old yet have been to many countries". Indeed, Zaccheus has travelled to Bangkok at 11 months, Malaysia at 15 months, Japan at 18 months and Hong Kong at 23 months. Whenever possible, DS and I will plan for a family vacation during my school holidays break. Being an avid shopper myself, I can't help but tend to choose countries with many shopping places. However, HongKong was never on our list when we were planning for the trip in late April. Actually, DS and I wanted to bring Zaccheus to either Desaru or Port Dickson together with Godma Eve, but our plans to travel there had to shelf aside due to late bookings. That's when we decided to go to HK for a short 4 days 3 nights stay.
During our 4 days in HK, we were like the typical tourists - visiting places of interests such as ladies market, fai yuen street, causeway bay, harbour city, ocean park etc. We chose to bring Zaccheus to ocean park instead of the overated Disneyland in HK. To my dismay, Ocean Park is nothing just like a humongous amusement park. Their underwater world was flooded with people with little ventilation inside. Little Zacch was fine with the seemingly lack of air while DS was cursing with frustration. Zacch liked the Panda village as he got to hug Panda mascot over and again. I have to admit that the Sea lions show was amazing with Zacch clapping from time to time. The kids rides were nothing to brag about as most are available in Singapore. Even the adults rides like ferries wheels, rollercoasters & abbys are similar to the rides in our country. The highlight of the day was the cable car rides. For someone who is fearful of height, I seemed to enjoy it on the return ride back. On the contrary, Zaccheus was enjoying the rides tremendously. He kept chattering non stop throughout the 10 minutes rides, which made DS, Godma Eve and I laughed.
The shopping trips were good but tiring as I had to carry Zacch in my arms for most of the times. He either refused to sit on the pram or allowed DS to carry him. At one of the fashion clothes, Zaccheus told me:" no no clothes. Want toys." At that moment, I realised that my little Zacch has already grown up. He wants to make decision and be in control. That makes me more cautious if ever I want to bring him out for a shopping outing together.
I think the place that Zaccheus enjoyed most was not Ocean Park nor the toy stores. It was the hotel room where he could play with the telephone, jumped on the bed and had rounds of pillow fight with Godma and DS. He also enjoyed taking the train and bus rides. Overall, bringing Zacch overseas might be tiring but it is truly worth it when I know he is enjoying himself.