Recovered

After being down for nearly a week, my little chap has bounced back to his lively self. Having gone through the last tormenting session, almost all his folds are gone and he has gone even skinnier.. no more chub :(

But it's a relieve to see him gain back his appetite. He's basically eating none stop! Probably he's trying to make up for his lost during the 1 week when he hardly ate anything.





He even attempted feeding himself bee hoon. When his dad tried to take over the fork he simply refuses to give it back to him and insisted on self feeding. hmmm i think he needs to learn some table manners. Bee hoon hanging from the mouth ain't a beautiful sight but it was a very welcome sight as I really want him to put on a little more weight to compensate for whatever he has lost.

Get Well Soon

We are unable to give you a life full of materialistic enjoyment,
We can't afford to clad you in designer wear,
We don't whisk you around in Aprica pram,
We do not have a luxury car to chauffeur you around,
Neither can we afford to build you your very own playroom filled with the most sophisticated toys or send you to the town's most reputed enrichment centre....

The only thing we can give you is unconditional love from the bottom of our hearts and soul. Get well soon little chap. Your daddy is all ready to take over your fever and can't wait to expel whatever little food you manage to take in on your behalf so that your tummy n gastric won't convulse in pain. "what about you mum?" you may ask, my answer is:"Anything, as long as you can get well and be your lively and playful self again. "

Share? NOOOOO!

Dear Parents out there, do you know what is the best way to get your toddler interested in their toys which they have long forgotten about? I know! That is to introduce “competition”. Hmmm somehow we can apply the theories we learn in economics to child raising.

Declan looses interest in his toys faster than you can blink your eyes. Toys which he has easy access to, he simply ignore their presence or at most will just meddle with them for a while before he roams away to hunt for other things to mess with and destroy.

Last night, we discovered a way to rekindle his “flame” for his toys again. The secret is to let another toddler play with his toys right in front of him. A distant cousin of Declan came to our house last night. His caregiver fished out some of Declan’s toys for the little boy to keep him entertain. Declan didn’t give two hoots on the presence of another toddler until he eyed him playing with HIS toys. He crawled over with a speed which will put the world’s top sprinter to shame and grabbed hold of whatever toys his little fists could hold on to and eyed the other fellow with hostility.

We were all pretty amused with his act of possessiveness. We told him gently that he must learn to share his stuffs but all those advices fell onto deaf ears. He just refused to let go. So, we brought out other toys to give “his competitor” while Declan held onto the other load with his dear life. The moment that boy touched the new load of toys, Declan let go of whatever he was holding on to and decided that those which “his competitor” were playing with seemed more interesting. -_-“

He would pulled the toys toward himself and if the other boy also refused to let go, he would grasped the toy tightly, screamed and turned back his head to look at his ah ma with pleading puppy eyes, seemingly to ask his ah ma to help him gained back the possession of his toys. This boy of mine, simply refuse to share. It was really an interesting sight.

Some parents may feel embarrassed over the selfishness of their little toddlers. However, to me, this is just a phase of their development. In fact, Stephen R. Covey had the same experience with his daughter and he initially felt embarrassed but after some soul searching he realized that, the toddlers must learnt a sense of possession before he/she can learn to share. (This was briefly mentioned in his “7 habits” book). That sounds logical to me. I am not at all disturbed by his expression of possessiveness. All I did was to keep reminding him that he should share.

Interestingly, we noticed that he has no problem sharing his things with his elder female cousin, Evelyn. However, he refused to share with Keith or that distant cousin who is a boy. Is it a gender thingy?? In fact he will share his snack with me and whoever asked him for a bite of his snack, he’ll generously feed you personally. But this privilege does not extend to Keith (one of his cousin). Weird… A little Casanova in the making?? I better keep my finger cross that it is not!

Computer Geek?

hmmmm I have a bad feeling that in years to come, this little boy will fight with his old mother over the use of computer.

Bad Breath

I’ve been trying all means and ways to try cleaning Declan’s teeth and tongue. He hates it when I try to push a hanky wrapped finger into his mouth. He’ll twist and turn around and try to wriggle his way out of my grasp whenever I try to clean them for him…

I’ve been telling mil for the longest time that she needed to clean Declan’s mouth everyday but she kept telling me that it is not necessary. Her reason was because all the babies whom she took care of last time didn’t need to go through that routine, so, she conveniently think that mine need not go through mouth cleaning too. Arghhhhhh!!!

To me this is basic hygiene… and it’s always good to start babies on good habits early… It’s never too early to instill good habits right?? To mil, her little grandson is forever too young for all sorts of thing. At 13 months, she still insists that he is too young to be disciplined…..

Of late, Declan has been waking up with pretty bad breathe… and when I brought up the cleaning issue again, mil say, his breathe smells bad because I fed him cod liver oil… The truth is, he has been smelling bad before I fed him cod liver oil.. and I’ve just started feeding him the oil few days ago… and so far he has only taken it twice and each time half a table spoon…. Again, she insists that it is not necessary for me to clean his teeth and tongue… YUCKS! Declan ain’t cooperating with me either….. he prefers to go along with his grandma.

As usual, I refuse to give up. I tell myself I must teach Declan to take care of his dental health as soon as possible. While roaming in kiddy palace this afternoon, I come across a set of pigeon baby toothbrush.



Heheheh.. it consisted of 3 different types of toothbrushes suitable for different stages (differentiated by the number of teeth a baby had). It seems like something which Declan will not hesitate to shove into his mouth. I bought it.





See? I was right! The moment I gave it to him, he pushes it right into his mouth and started chewing on it. It’s a good start. I want him to get associated with the little toothbrush. While he chews, I demonstrated the action of tooth brushing to him and tell him :”Yes baby, brush teeth, brush brush.” He also tried pushing the toothbrush around in his mouth. The good thing about this set of toothbrush is, it comes with a stopper ring to be fixed on the brush to prevent choking.

I let him play with the brush for awhile then I take it away and keep it. This is to prevent him from loosing interest on that little sacred brush. I’ll give it to him every morning when he wakes up and go through the tooth brushing routine with him. Let’s hope he’ll get the idea soon and will allow me to clean his teeth for him.

GO AWAY BAD BREATH!