We are 2!

"Where does the time go", every parent wonders. We can hardly believe it that our little fellow has just turned 2. Overnight we have seen changes in our boy, not that there were no changes before - but there is something very different about our boy since his birthday. Growing like a weed, and making his parents MOSTLY happy. :)

Whatever it is, Happy 2nd Birthday, JW!

Terrible Twos

We are well and truly into our terrible twos. Some days are better than others of course, and some terrible moments more bearable than others. For most of our days, JW has been a lovely little boy, entertaining us with his new words and little antics.

This morning we had a little dance session to Don Johnson, with JW swaying to the beat of Don Johnson. After the songs, he would clap loudly, spotting a big grin on his little round face. Right now, at nap time, we have a screaming toddler who did not finish his fried rice, made his mummy cut pear, only to have a few bites and refuse it. He then proceeded to ask for his fried rice again, only to discover that it is all gone!

So is the terrible twos anyway? Is this really a period of bad behaviour, tantrums, naughtiness? Or is it another growth period where little one just exerts his independence, but fails to communicate what he wants 80 percent of the time? At times, it seems just as confusing for the parents as it is for the child...

JW and Keira on their playdate

Mother's Day and Mrs Kong's mother's day present

JW at Mother's Day lunch. They ran out of spoons for kids..

A hectic day for restaurants and shops selling all Mother's Day it was. JW, Mr Kong, Mrs Kong and po po braved the crowds for a mother's day brunch at Oriental in Jaya 33. The restaurant floor was extended out towards the escalators and still there was a queue for tables after we arrived. Although we were lucky enough to get a table without much fuss, we soon encountered another problem - the shortage of dim sum - kid you not.

Nevertheless, it has been a great Mother's Day weekend, Mrs Kong would like to report; catching up on lost sleep, time for R&R and just breathing space - all for Mrs Kong that is. Mr Kong voluntereed his services as nanny, maid and driver! (pretty sure Mr Kong is now ready for Father's Day)

As for Mrs Kong's mother's day pressie for the day it has to be the little wave goodbye from JW as he hopped and skipped out of the house at 8am with his father to check out the digger at the end of our street. No fuss, just a quick turn around and wave ... "bye bye mummy". He hesitates and looks back as he hears the words "Bye bye JW, I love you", as if to say 'I will miss you' but quickly turns back to his father as the digger awaits!

Our little boy is growing up - happy, healthy and strong. Best mother's day present ever.

Happy mother's day, mummies out there!

Last week of Freedom?

Its been 4 months of joy and happiness - being "help" less. Our last helper left in December 2009 and Mrs Kong has been spending her days alone with JW. It has seemed longer than 4 months, but it has been good overall.

Over the last 4 months, we have seen a very unsteady JW (on his feet) to a little toddler who rarely sits still. He has learned a whole lot more independence and self reliance. He has also learned how to load and start the washing machine, though his effectiveness still needs working on. He seems to be developing in the direction we want him to be. He has learned that there are times when he will have to entertain himself (though he does not necessarily do so all the time). As a family, we are more spontaneous and candid. We have had so many more laughs, just the three of us.

All that aside, it is time now to consider additional domestic help. Mrs Kong cannot help but wonder how this will affect our family and JW's development. How will things change? Or do we already know. ...

The importance of being updated

And here is where we have to start off with a very very familiar apology. Apologies for not updating our blog... as an old friend has just reminded me today. It is not intentional of course, as these omissions are rarely intentional.

Rather, we would like to think that we have just been caught up in the process of raising a toddler.

So here we are now, with our chatty 21 month old, who has moved beyond parrot -ting what we have to say, to cheeky retorts, whether intentional or otherwise. He is able to remember instructions and reprimands, but does not necessary follow them.

As a matter of fact, our terrible twos just started TODAY. :)

O!

Foooood Hall, The Gardens Midvalley

2 Sundays ago, Mr + Mrs Kong took JW to The Gardens for lunch, a bit of shopping and to check out the Christmas decorations.

Imagine our horror when on arrival we realised that we had forgotten the boy's stroller! We'd never gone on a trip of more than hour without it before. It felt like we were jumping out of an aeroplane without a parachute.

Anyway, we were there so we thought we'd make the best of it, thinking we'd have to carry the boy most of the time. To our surprise and delight, not only did he not need to be carried (much), he loved toddling around - looking at the decorations, window shopping, going up and down the escalator (and up and down, and up and down again)!

It really made Mr Kong realise how much JW has really grown. He's definitely not a baby anymore...

One of the best parts was after lunch at the Garden's food court when JW played in between the seats in the form of letters at the front and started saying the letters out loud. The pictures below say it all:

"O!"

The month of December

Much of life comes to a some sort of standstill in December. Its the school holidays and Mr + Mrs Kong are just becoming newly acquainted with. Its a life outside of mainstream commercialism, and a life one would know only too well if one were a student, parent of a student, or teacher.

Of course, JW is not of school going age yet, but the simple venture of finding a play group for JW is something clearly new to us.

Sure it is a month for family, Christmas celebrations, meeting with friends and holidays. Mrs Kong never imagined that even play groups took a break! Oh well, we will just have to wait until next year!

Head Shaking

We don't know where and how JW has learned this, but our boy now shakes his head to indicate "no"!

He does it mainly to refuse his dinner, and we are truly baffled.

Its a little cute but at the same time, quite alarming. Mrs Kong is raking her brains ... where did he learn this from? The "no" head shake genetically coded into our DNA?

Playtime at 16 months

With our 16th month fast approaching, Mr + Mrs Kong has been raking her brains on how to occupy our little JW. Fast moving to just one nap a day, we have more alert time to work with! Even Mrs Kong is getting bored of reading the same old books and playing with the same old toys.

So we have been told that we need not buy more toys at this age. Instead we have created a temporary play area in our living room for JW, with a cardboard tunnel (to decorated by Mrs Kong) and a little hill (aka bean bag). There is mount "sofa" which leads to fantastic views out the window overlooking the washing machine outside!

JW loves looking out the window and gladly climbs mount "sofa" to do so.

Good bye neat and tidy living room, hello play zone with tunnel and all!

Sizing diapers for a prewalker and worn out cloth diapers

I suppose this question is of less consequence if one were diapering on disposables but a little more important for cloth diapering, given the huge "sunk costs" involved in cloth diapering. Hence, the incentive to get it right.

So it seems, as we have discovered in the past couple of weeks, that pre-walkers slim down after they start to take their first steps. Mrs Kong did not realise this when she wrote the blog post on getting larger diapers, but is glad now that we did not jump the gun into buying more in the larger XL size. JW, which we anticipated would hit the XL soon, is now hovering at the L size since starting to walk. His is now trimmer, looks taller, though not any lighter. The conclusion is really to avoid sizing up a chubby pre-walker because there is a high possibility that they will slim down!

We have however worn out our Cloth Diaper Wholesale diapers, which have run loose on the elastics. It really is about time as these diapers have worked overtime since we got them in May this year. They don't even "rest" for 24 hours after they dry before their are pulled off the clothes line, and put onto JW's bum. The same goes for the fitted diapers in our stash, now that the CDWs are out of commission. Suffice to say the CDWs have paid for themselves many times over.

Meanwhile we are surviving on the minimal number of diapers, supplementing with the traditional white nappy when it rains, or we just plain run out of cloth diapers.

Our workhorse diapers:

4 Dream Eze fitteds;
2 Baby Beehind Bamboo fitteds;
2 My Precious Baby by April fitteds;
3 Bum Genius one size pocket diapers.
1 Starbunz AIO (which we really don't use at all);
2 wool covers.

As you can imagine, they are getting worn out real fast given we use an average of 5 diapers a day. More if we are on the traditional cloth nappies. Time to break out the new diapers!

Standing on his own

picture from a month ago!!

Walking on his own

Mr Kong with JW at bedtime. After teeth brushing, before reading time.

We did it today!

On our own. Without help. A little wobbly at first, but we made it.. to mummy. Brought a big wide smile along too.

Someone is growing up too fast for Mr + Mrs Kong .... :D

With JW at the Zoo

Photo of JW and Mrs Kong taken at the Zoo Negara, with Mrs Kong crappy handphone camera. JW loves this photo though. He recognises it as a photo of "papa and baby"!

Walking walking walking

JW is doing it cautiously. :) And mummy is thankful for that. He is now doing so, pushing his little plastic car along nicely, and has even learned how to turn!

Another day of practice, heading to perfection.

Wool at night

JW in the Baby Beehinds Wool cover.

It is suppose to be cooler than PUL (Polyurethane Laminate); and to that Mrs Kong can testify. We have used it sporadically for a few nights now, and am glad to report that it is true. Hard to believe but true. It also manages to keep the smell of the pee in better, compared to the nights when we used our PUL pocket diapers. And surprisingly, turns out odour free after it dries out in the sun without frequent washing.

JW's first words

Phuh-phuh

The boy has been saying words for a few months now but it has always been in a non-specific, generic sort of way (e.g. "Pa-pa!" made Mr Kong ecstatic until JW pointed at the toilet bowl and said "Pa-pa!").

Lately, Mr & Mrs Kong have noticed that he actually knows what certain words (or sounds) mean and can repeat certain words said to him.

So here in no particular order is a list of words, and their translations, as uttered by JW Kong, age 14 months:

1. Ah-Pa; Ba-ba; Babababababababa = Papa
2. Ma-ma; Mam-mam = Mummy
3. Phuh phuh = lamp
4. Bauuu = ball
5. AnNNN = ant (followed by squishing of said ant)
6. Ne-mon = lemon
7. Be-baaa = zebra
8. Gigi, gigi = brush teeth (from the sound of brushing teeth, not the Malay word for teeth though)
9. Row-row = robot
10. Broom brrroommm = car, truck, boat, stroller etc
11. Wou wou = dog
12. Abel = apple

And last but not least

13. UUHHHHH (accompanied by pointing) = I want that! / I want to go there!

Will keep everyone posted on future utterances...

Are we too young to start the potty training process?

Of late, Mrs Kong has noticed a pattern in JW's peeing. Of course it happens when the diaper is on, but it also happens, quite consistently, in a few minutes after the diaper is taken off, when we are either in our bathtub, or standing next to the water basin, playing with our bath toys. Mrs Kong notices because Mrs Kong cleans up before proceeding with the bath!

So this is an idea: can we start the potty training process now? (though JW will miss out on wearing cute cloth diapers... ) Can JW sit still in his new potty, and not try to chew at it like he did 2 months ago when we first got it?

We shall see what happens at bath time tonight.

Feeding at 12 months

JW has mostly been an enthusiastic eater. He has been willing to try new tastes, and up till a month ago, had his favourites when it comes to food. But just after his first birthday, we did notice a change in his behaviour: with increased fussiness, unwillingness to sleep, and distraction when it came to meal times.

Now, a month on, JW has taken to refusing his solids, sometimes going without a meal (or 2) and just drinking milk. At first, (and still to some extent) this raised alarm bells in Mrs Kong's mind. After all, isn't a well fed child demonstrative of good parenting? And what about all the time and resources to put the food on the table? It is certainly a waste of money and good food. Shouldn't we just feed it to JW anyway, after all, he is only a baby and we are acting in his best interest?

Yes, it is all too tempting to force feed JW at times like this: a thought that has crossed Mrs Kong's mind. However, after consulting several well recommended books on baby care and child rearing, this quite clearly isn't a simple solution for the reasons below:

It is believed that force feeding can lead to unhealthy eating habits as it teaches the child to ignore his own bodily signals - and to continue eating when he is indeed full. Further more, the right to decide whether he is full has been named as a component of a child's physical integrity, not too dissimilar from the right to be free of physical abuse. This is alleged to have far reaching implications to a child's emotional and psychological well being.

Hence we are now faced with the question: do we (a) force feed JW and ensure that he gets 3 square meals a day (assuming we are able to do this?); or (b) do we let JW decide for himself if he is indeed hungry and wants to eat, but waste all that food AND let him skip meals?

The latter choice is still too troubling for Mummy, but it might be the better course of action just to let him be.

[As long as he does not lose weight. ... !]

This is how much JW had for lunch yesterday... just the bit on the bottom left ..

Thankfully, JW had some broccoli and orange. The remainder fell into his "little pouch"

Of course, there could be other, more sinister reasons for JW's refusal of some of his meals. It could mean allergies for one, but we are not certain of this yet. Reading up on allergies at the moment, and hopefully we won't find anything serious.

Meanwhile, Mr Kong and Mrs Kong have now taken on DBKL like roles. We get rid of the wastage from JW's meals - Mr Kong being in charge of liquid disposals (milk in particular) while Mrs Kong is responsible for the solid disposals (all other foods not containing milk)! Lets see who puts on more weight from these new parenting duties!

12 months and 3 weeks we are!