I thought
that
I would be updating my blogs more often now that I have a new laptop. Unfortunately, that's not happening. Sean is using my laptop more often than I'm using it. He watches movies and UTube videos
. There was a period when he was really into old Mickey and Donald's short films. I'm kind of glad to find a clip of Mickey, Donald and Goofy on a camping trip. That was my all time favourite.
When he doesn't use it, I'll be with him and away from the laptop. Of course, I can't put all the blame on him. I've been reading and catching up on Facebook too, so I haven't blog very much. I'm finding that I'm forgetting things faster now and if I don't jot these thoughts down, I think I'll quickly forget them altogether.
The letter ASean is obsessed about the letter A. He still does not speak a lot, but he loves his letter 'A'! Everywhere he goes he looks for the letter A. He loves his Alphabet puzzles. Unfortunately, he poured water over them and after I dried them, he messed them about. Hence, there are letters missing from the puzzle. In fact, we're missing lots of things with 'A's on them because he played with them so often. I've been looking but still can't find them.
He loves to listen to the Alphabet song and makes me writes the Alphabet, especially the letter 'A' over and over again. You would think after so much exposure to the Alphabet, he would know more letters. Nope...... when I tried to get him to say other letters, all letters are "A" to him. =P
BedtimeI've complained before that it takes a long time to get Sean to sleep. That, unfortunately, has not changed at all. In fact, it's getting worse now. Every time I say it's time to sleep, he makes excuses. He can't speak much but he gets his message clear.
First, he's hungry. Then, he's thirsty. Then he wants to pee. Then he wants a book. Then he wants to play. Then it repeats. By the time my patience runs thin and I say "Enough! Lights out." He starts crying loudly and looks really miserable. Sigh....By the time I get him to sleep, I need to sleep too.
Playing house
Sean has always played in his cardboard house. The house is no longer as pretty as it used to be. He's torn some of the seaweeds and fish, and drawn on the walls of the house. Fortunately, I made it really well, so it's still sturdy despite Sean's very rough playing.
He bash about inside and hides inside when he pooped or when he doesn't want to bathe or just to dump his toys inside. But recently, I changed the arrangement of the house so that the door will face towards his bed. The idea was that so he wouldn't hide inside easily when I try to bath him
so it would be easier to catch him when it's bath time.
To get into the house, he'll need to climb onto the bed and climb down int the hole between his bed and the cardboard house. Because of that, he's found the house more fun to play in. He loves the act of climbing inside and hiding in the house. He throws all his soft toys, some of our pillows, and the blanket down on the floor and into the house. He brings his toys and plays inside. He pulls me inside to squeeze and play with him. It's mighty uncomfortable and I'm really reluctant to play inside. But I'm glad that the cardboard house is well-loved. =D
Unfortunately, it's harder now to get him to bath because it's almost impossible to get him out when he's hiding in the house!
Skin to skinBaby books encourages mothers to have skin to skin contact with their babies to foster mother and child bond. When Sean was still a baby I tried to have as much skin to skin contact and I loved to cuddle him. Recently, Sean would lift up his t-shirt and press himself to my tummy when he breastfeeds just before sleeping. I just find the act of him lifting up his t-shirt to expose his tummy so funny.
The first time I noticed it, I was wondering what is this boy doing? It's just funny when he adjust himself so he's tummy to tummy with me. I guess breastfeeding and bathing together makes your child very comfortable with your naked self.
I guess sometime in the future I'm going to have to tell him that mummy cannot bath with him anymore. Or maybe he'll tell me that he's a big boy already and needs his privacy! ha ha ha .... But seriously
Potty training
Recently, Sean has been indicating to me that he wants to pee. I haven't really been trying to potty train him but I thought I should respond and try anyway when he tells me he wants to pee/poo. So I would quickly takes his pants and diaper off and put him on the potty.
I don't know if he finds it fun to sit on the potty or if he really needs to go. Most of the time, he sits and moves about in his potty without peeing. After 10 minutes, I'll ask him exasperatedly, " Are you done yet? If you're not peeing, let's put your diaper back." Then he'll say no and points to indicate that he wants to pee. Sometimes the pee doesn't happen at all. Sometimes after saying "Ssshhhh ssshhhh" for 20 minutes, I need to pee and he didn't pee after all!
I'm glad that he's starting to show interest in the potty, but it gets really exasperating waiting for a little boy in the toilet. I definitely need to get another potty so I don't have to run upstairs or downstairs to get the potty when Sean wants to use it.
PaintingI tried to do painting with Sean last week. I didn't have any finger paint so I quickly made some paint with flour, water and food colorings. It wasn't a success. Let's just say the preparation took longer than the actual playing!
First, the paint wasn't really nice. (Got to find a better recipe). Next, Sean wanted his hands to be wiped everytime it got dirty. Lastly, Sean was more interested in painting the table than the paper. After a few minutes, he poured all the the paint on the paper.
I thought....Okaayyy..... I think it's time to stop. Luckily I covered most of the table with papers, so all I needed to do was scooped the wet papers and dumped them into the bin and quickly wiped the table with a cloth. I gave him some playdough and flour to play with. It was equally messy but at least it didn't pose the possibility of staining everything that Sean touches.
No more painting until muuuuccchh later. Maybe he should only do painting when he's in kindergarden! =P
Grand birthday partyWe recently went to a 7 year old girl's birthday party. She's the only child of well to-do parents. Her party was held in a clubhouse ballroom, with buffet table, an MC, abrass band, a group of highschool musical cheerleaders, and a magician. This was only what we saw because we came late and supposedly missed half the show.
It's great to be the birthday kid to have parents who love her so much. But I'm just wondering if giving so much to such a young child will cause problems in the future. Do the parents have to have bigger and bigger birthday bash every year? What if they can't afford it in the future? Is it going to be the norm? Some mothers have told me that birthday parties can cost thousands and it's routinely done. One mother even told me that she had to bring her children to 3 birthday parties on a saturday once and she keeps a stock of birthday presents. Gosh... birthdays are expensive!
I don't know if Sean will ever get such a birthday party. We can't afford it anyway. But even if we can afford it in the future, I would think that he would prefer to have the money spent on him, i.e. on his birthday presents, rather than paying for such expensive entertainments.
Playing games onlineYesterday, as I was surfing for pictures of the letter 'A' I stumbled upon PBS kids website. It has many online games. Margaret told me that her son Eugene plays Playhouse Disney online games regularly. I thought what a great idea!
So Sean and I played "Wordworld" games. Or at least I played and he watches. He really enjoyed it. I tried teaching him to use the mouse but he's not quite ready yet. The website has many games from all the PBS kids TV shows. Many are not even shown here. Sean loved the Curious George games too.
Here's the link if you want to check it out.
http://pbskids.org/curiousgeorge/index.html
First, I created a corner where we can play and learn together. It's meant to be a place where he is comfortable and know where all his things are. However we keep moving the things here and there so we haven't got to the point where he knows where all his things are.
Then on Friday, I covered his tables with white paper and plastics. It's meant to be a writing table that you can write and wipe off, like a whiteboard, so that Sean can scribble on it anytime he wants. But I found out that Sean doesn't want to wipe off the things he writes on the table. So it doesn't really work the way I imagined it to be.
Today I got him to write a few words just for a few minutes. At first I just got him to write on a white piece of paper. It turned out terrible because he couldn't manage the size of his letters. So I drew out a box for each letter and that helped a lot.
I made some sandpaper letters. It's a bit mismatched because I used whatever I had at home. When I ran out of the sandpaper,I couldn't find the same color. I'll try them out on Sean and see if they help with writing.
He still loves playing the computer most. I have to say there are just so many interesting things online that normal games can't really compete with the variety of games available online. But I try to get him do other things so that at least he gets a balanced day, such as playing playdough and cooking games.
Daddy has wanted to make Sean a Wall.e costume. So today he cut out a box for the body. Unfortunately Sean wanted to paint it red, so it didn't become wall.e after all.
Oh yeah, I made this wrist band as a craft for the playgroup. But the idea was to get Sean remember his name and to learn how to open and close button. It's very easy to make.
