(a little note: about the part on the rattlesnake, coincidentally, an episode of The Pink Panther was shown after we’d read this a few times together, where the panther accidentally stole a basket containing a baby instead of food during a picnic scene and in an effort to pacify the said baby, now crying, he’d removed the end of the rattlesnake’s tail to give to the baby as a rattle, and i guess this left such an impression with the kids that they associate it with this particular rattlesnake every time.)

(also, another note: they will inevitably ask the same question in every story with illustrations – “where’s the daddy/mummy/baby?” not sure why but there’s always a concern for the whereabouts of a missing family member in the story.)

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no! i most certainly did NOT teach her how to apply cosmetics! i swear! it is all mimicry!

in any case, she seems to have a knack at lipglossing sans mirror, just like me. won’t be long before she too can do it WHILE driving.

it’s, err, genetic.

*no alien figurines were harmed during the filming of this video.

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The Big Pancake, originally uploaded by izadd.

her brother’s speech and drama assignment for Literary Week. he’d chosen the pig character in The Big Pancake for some reason. (this from the boy who went on ‘stage’ during said speech and drama presentation and declared “my dream pet is a dog”.) the makeshift pig’s snout had unfortunately disintegrated by now. mummy’s obviously not too great at art & craft.

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was chatting with aniq over chicken nuggets and fries about what mummy did yesterday with her friends while he and his sister were with their daddy.

M: “oh, i went to watch a movie.”
A: “movie? girl movie?”
M: “yah.”
A: “no shooting? no fighting?”
M: “nope. it’s about girls, going shopping, wearing nice dresses.. love, boyfriend-girlfriend…”
A: “eee!”
M: “what eee! nanti you dah besar…”

(and so the conversation meandered to a topic we’ve visited a few times before.)

A: “mummy, why boy and girl must marry?”
M: “when you grow up, you’ll know lah.”

(now we know why our parents always tell us this – they didn’t know how to explain ha ha.)

A: “i want to marry you lah.”
M: “mana boleh. you have to choose someone your age. nanti you dah besar, you find someone you like, then you marry her.”
A: “then i choose batrisyah lah.”

(this, the mysterious batrisyah from his classroom. her name seems to crop up like a regular cast in a tv series.)

M: “you sure she likes you?”
A: “yes, she likes me.”
M: “how do you knowww?”
A: “i know lah.”
M: “but HOW do you knowww?”
A: “i KNOWWW.”
M: “yah, but HOWWWW?”
A: “I JUST KNOW LAHHHH.”

ahh, such is the conviction of a 4-year-old. (and to think Mr Big took 10 years to figure it out and finally marry Carrie.)

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i love these mini supermarket trolleys that cold storage provides little shoppers with. navigating the thing kept them busy, and they were more than happy to push around the items we dumped in. family-friendly supermarkets ftw!

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Two-year-olds are likely to:

well, we’re right on track, then.

from primping girl to domestic goddess!

dressing up:

making up:

pinkberry-ing:

mothering:

um, diapering?:

cooking:

cleaning:

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the thing with siblings, they can get pretty competitive, and i think even more so if their age gap is close. one of our tricks to make them do something is to turn it into a competition. most times it works.

another thing we like to do is go “who wants to [fill in activity]?” eg. “who wants to eat ice-cream?” (“ME!”) or “who wants to go swimming?” (“ME!”) etc. the daddy thinks sometimes they don’t even hear what he’s suggesting, they simply go “ME!” coz they don’t want to lose out. so he tried an experiment by garbling his words. “who wants to grgmmbfyabbayabbabla?” “ME!!”

for the purpose of this photo exercise, i’d asked “who wants to eat popcorn later?”. guess the answer.

i don’t know how they can be so chipper in the morning. they came back late from a party last night (bad parenting, as usual), yet here they are, all ready to take on the world the next morning… while we adults are cursing away the monday blues.

and i better remember my popcorn promise later in the evening.

now, who’s going to have a great week ahead? ;)

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the difference between an elder brother and an elder sister: where the elder sister consoles and soothes an inconsolable crying baby sister, the elder brother makes funny faces and silly sounds to make her laugh.

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i didn’t realise the daddy twitpic-ed this. been trying to capture her in this position for some time, without success. i don’t know why, it just tickles my mommy funny-bone, the way she lies on her “stummy” (her brother’s word for stomach+tummy) with her hands squishing her cheeks.

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we’re not sure where she picks up her seemingly sudden jump in vocabulary each day – we suspect it could be from her brother, whom she interacts with (and mimics) everyday, or from her teachers in school. i’d bet more on the former.

last night our conversations went something like this:

M: auni, which colour do you like? (playing with stacking rings)
A: i yike geen. (“i like green”)
M: eh? (amused but bewildered – i’d only mentioned ‘green’ in passing the day before when we played with another set of stacking rings at home, but didn’t think she internalised it or anything, gee i gotta be more careful what i say around her or whaaat…)

M: sayang mummy tak?
A: yes. i yike ami… i yike daddy… i yike babang… i yike ama… i yike bibik… i yike, err… babang…
M: O-o

M: is it nice? sedap?
A: (sipping on an iced drink) nice! dap!
M: (affecting a grimace to show feigned disgust) no lah! NOT NICE! yuks!
A: NICE!!
M: nooo, not niiiiiceeee.
A: NIIIICE! I YIKE!!

she is turning into – *gasp* – her brother.

but i do think the second child tends to develop speech at a generally faster rate, thanks to the elder sibling as model.

as for the other behaviours, i’m still, errm, crossing my fingers.

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am looking at auni’s documentation of her first two weeks at the centre.

it reads something like this. (yes i’m typing it out. don’t call me crazy. i’m a mommy.)

day 1: went in the class independently… sat down for a while and walked to the dramatic corner… played with manipulatives… ate the chicken only.

day 2: went in the class. didn’t cry… sang some familiar songs… enjoyed the walk around the neighbourhood… played puzzles… ate rice but did not finish.

day 3: did not cry… had storytelling… played at blocks corner… had dory fish + rice + vege… able to relate to the story at storytime (Adam’s Daycare).

day 4: cried (!!)… settled down… played at fine motor corner… had chicken mushroom + rice… sat down well at storytime.

day 5: cried… had chinese lesson… went to the library corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… able to sing along with the book, ‘Wheels on the Bus’.

day 6: cried… settled and joined in the music & movement… explored with the discovery corner… chose a book for the class.

day 7: cried for a while… did painting on easel board… had fun exploring with water… had baked chicken + rice.

day 8: cried for a while but settled down… dramatization for the book ‘Wheels on the Bus’… played at the playground… able to answer questions when asked.

day 9: had music & movement… played at discovery corner… activity at the void deck… played at the chinese corner… had 2nd helping at lunch… sat well at storytime.

day 10: sang songs… played with dough… enjoyed herself at the swing… played at dramatic corner… had steamed egg… chose a book for the class.

we must have made her miss four days out of that two weeks, coz that’s all i have. (wait, actually, 5 + 5 weekdays do technically count as two weeks of school, right?)

and don’t worry, coz she’s been there a month now and has since been reported as going straight into her class with nary a tear. i wasn’t too worried about the crying thing anyway coz, well, she IS barely two years old, what can one expect? they’re dramatic like that! they have good days and they have bad days. heck, i’m 32 and even i want to burst into tears when i reach work everyday. (ok lah, exaggerating…)

also, for the most parts, she’s pretty easy-going by nature, and like most children, adaptable to changes.

when i leave for work in the mornings, she puckers up her lips and gives me a cheerful “bye bye!”, and that, well, makes me NOT cry when i reach work everyday. :D

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M: auni, tadi makan apa? (what did you eat today?)
A: asi! (nasi = rice)
M: lagi? (some more?)
A: eeken! (chicken, obviously, duh) ayam! (she has, as at last check, on 3 feb 2000hrs, decided to answer this instead of ‘eeken’.)
M: lagi?
A: opok! (keropok = fish cracker)
M: eh? sedap? (nice?)
A: dap!
M: pandai! (clever)

and when asked the various body parts in malay, she will obligingly twitch or point accordingly. yesterday, she saw her oma half-undressed and went, “eh, tak alu!” (no shame!).

ah. there is hope yet for you, my young padawan.

=========

M: aniq, ‘fish’ dalam melayu apa? (what is ‘fish’ in malay?)
A: …
M: (prompting with first syllable of ‘ikan’) eeee…?
A: eeee… er san!
M: O-O <--- (talk about culture shock.)

=========

in any case, they're both smitten by upin & ipin, you know, identical twin pre-schoolers who are the cutest cartoon characters, like EVUH, hailing from a fictional kampung in malaysia. (well, there was Lat the Kampung Boy back in the days - remember him? - but upin & ipin are so... arrrgh, DEM CUTE, and there are two of 'em!) the husband and i totally approve of the series, more so since the dialogue's so chuckle-worthy and in malay, and, i mean, WHO NEEDS TO LEARN SPANISH LAH, RIGHT?

so smitten by the characters and their antics, that even the little one has taken to mimicking the dialogue. a particular one that stuck to her was where the token effeminate youth in the kampung insists that his name's not Salleh but Sally, and attempts to spell it out: "S-I-L-L-Y", dismissing his misspelling with a flick of his limp wrist, "apa jer lah, tak kuasa aku." ("whatever!" - another thing about the beauty of localised humour - the english version simply does not translate sufficiently. right? betul betul betul?)

maybe i should send them to a kampung in malaysia, if anything, to brush up on their malay.

speaking of kampungs, the other night, in one of my meandering discussions with the little boy after an episode of upin & ipin, i described to him how in kampungs, they have no toilets with a flushing system, and potty business had to be done in an outhouse or behind bushes in the forest. (AS IF i know anything about rural life, hah! but mothers being mothers, must sound convincing and knowledgeable lah, right? betul betul betul?)

M: ingat tak, citer upin ipin, kawan cucu tok dalang sakit perut, nak pegi toilet tapi dia takut pasal dah malam abih tempat dia jauh? ahhh.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. kat kampung takde toilet.
A: why??
M: ye laaah. macam gitu. abih ingat tak, kawan cucu tok dalang nak berak, dia sembunyi belakang semak-samun? (at this point, even i can’t believe i just said ‘semak-samun’, an almost archaic word for thicket/undergrowth.)
A: why??
M: ye lah. pasal takde toilet!!

you can imagine how this conversation went on – endlessly.

like this bridge we trekked last weekend, in our attempt to bring the children close to nature.

well, as close as we could get to the semak-semak, anyway. no potty business going on here, though. it’s as sterile as everything typically singaporean is.

and mummy – again, ever-convincing and knowledgeable – explained away the many whys. sometimes with more than a “ye laah”.

yes. trees and branches may fall. take care.

berhati-hati di semak-samun, kenak-kanak.

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been meaning to post this up a few days ago.

i’d screamed my head off each time she attempted to climb over the back of our new sofa, and also at her brother whom she was imitating. her daddy told me it was no use coz she’d already done this stunt a few times, but only at the point of me capturing this vid that i discovered she really could do it – without harming herself, apparently.

grrrr.

note her “dare-you-to-stop-me” look while she performed the stunt for my benefit, and then gleefully dancing her arms about as she tottered away from me in escape from persecution.

i once overheard an old makcik, a long time ago in my teenage days, loudly warning her young charges who were swinging on railings or whatever – “jangan buat gitu! nanti kau jatuh, kepala kau pecah!” and i remembered thinking, come on, makcik, seriously? break his head? how melodramatic! hyperbolic! exaggerating! coz it seemed ridiculous that a kid, an agile one at that, could drop on his head from swinging on some mere low railings, and have his skull crack open, spilling its bloody content out all over the ground.

but now, many years later and having become a mom, the image has turned into a highly possible (and gory) reality, and the same phrase, which i once scoffed indignantly at in my arrogant youth, is perpetuated on my very own children.

“TURUN! JANGAN BUAT GITU, NANTI KAU JATUH, KEPALA KAU PECAAAAH!”

yes, i have turned into that histrionic makcik after all, in this great, karmic circle of life.

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