Toilet Training

Since the time we introduced Sean to the potty quite a while ago, he has refused to get on the potty. He'll run away and hides in a corner to do his business. So potty training has been at a stand still. I've talked to other mummies who have successfully potty trained their children, their advice is to just get Sean out of his diapers. They say it takes a week to a month. So I decided to try the not wearing diaper at home method.

It's not that easy. Sean found it weird not to wear a diaper, so he kept crying and trying to wear his diaper at the beginning. So I didn't really push it.

But I thought I'll try it again tonight. So far this is what happened within the last hour. When I came out from the bathroom, he came to me with a marker in his hand. I thought he wanted to tell me that he colored something. I asked, "Did you draw something? Can you show me? " So he dutifully brought me to a corner of the room and pointed 'Mum, wet!" The next one was when he was playing on the cushion, and suddenly says "Wet!"

He's so used to peeing in the diaper that he still doesn't know how to tell me that he wants to pee. This looks like it's going to be a wet and smelly period. =P

Sean @ 31 months

Speech
I've been very worried about Sean's speech since he turned 2. It's obvious that he is not progressing in his speech the same as many other toddlers his age. Since then, I've consciously tried to get him to talk more. At first, he was resistant. He has this stubborn streak. If he doesn't want to do something, it's really difficult to get him to do it.

I've read that to teach a toddler who is slow in speech, you need to talk face to face with him and get him see the way your mouth moves as you enunciate each word. He didn't even want to see my mouth. So I thought sending him to a speech therapist at that stage would not be that useful. We had to do this at home first.

So we began to consciously trying to get him to talk, pronouncing words slowly and getting him to say it. Somewhere along, he got the Alphabet bug and really enjoyed reciting the alphabet. When we entered Children Corner, it so happened that they have a weekly lesson on letters. Perfect! Sean loves lesson time. He still didn't speak much though. Just recite the alphabet over and over again. He knows them all by heart but still doesn't quite get his 'F', 'W', and 'X'.

Since he started Playschool, he's starting to incorporate more words. Sometimes he's just so excited when he wants to say something, he ends up pointing and making urgent noises. Maybe he just have too much to say and doesn't know the words. I've got to constantly remind myself to say out the words rather than saying, "What is it? What are you trying to say?" He probably doesn't know what words he's trying to say. Playschool also reminded me about teaching Sean to pray. So we started having to pray for Sean to be able to speak clearly.

But I was still worried that when Sean turned 30 months, he still could not string 2 words together. The article I read said that it could be Autism, another article described about Childhood Apraxia. I mean people have told me many stories that someone they knew didn't speak until 3 or 4 years old, and they are perfectly fine. I know that but I think it's hard for a mother not to worry about her child.

Sean actually understands quite a lot. You can talk to him normally and he'll understand you. The problem is that he's finding it difficult to say words with 2 syllables. So when we went to get his 2 1/2 year jab at the pediatrician, we asked the doctor. He said we should start writing a list of words Sean uses in his speech before he can diagnose whether there's a problem or not. And to see if there are new words in his vocabulary. Which we are doing now.

The thing is Sean is a perfectly well-balanced child. He's happy when he's not in a whinny mood and trying to get his way. He's good a great sense of humour. He has lots of energy and is healthy (most of the time). He is very lively, which sometimes is difficult when he has to sit down at school and sing. He just wants to run around and dance, which he loves to do very much. Recently, when he hears a good dance tune, he breaks out into his own dance.

But the speech thing really bug me. But just last night and today, I heard him string 2 words together! Alleluya! Other kids his age can speak in sentences or even sing a song, but for this mummy, knowing my son is now beginning to put 2 words together is a break through! I'm definitely feeling relieved. I hope he'll progress more each day. =D

Breastfeeding Weaning program
So I'm still breastfeeding Sean. Some will say, it's good but many others are aghast. Even my own parents are telling me to quit immediately, actually they've been telling me for a long time. " He's sucking you out! You're too skinny! It's not good for you!"

Well.... it's not that I'm not trying to wean Sean but I haven't been able to do the "Just don't give him"method, because Sean cries loudly and turns to his daddy and point an accusing finger at me "Ne ne ne ne!" As if I had hurt him emotinally so badly. And my dear hubby jokingly tells him " Tell mummy, it's better than mango."and was not supportive of weaning abruptly. So it took quite a while before I get more support from hubby to wean Sean. Now at least when I say no to Sean he'll take my side "Mummy says no."

So we are on a gradual weaning program. First I had to get Sean interested in other milk first. We tried several new milk in the market and he's likes the Yes! Grape flavoured milk fo snack and the plain Dutchmilk for before sleeping. So I'm giving him a small bottle of milk before he can breastfeed. I tell him, he has to finish the small bottle of milk first before he can nen-nen. At first, he rejected the milk but now he's grudgingly accepting the fact that he has to drink the milk first. But you can see from his face that he'd rather not drink it. It's like drinking medicine to him. In fact, it's easier to get him to drink medicine than to drink milk!

So my hope is to get him to drink more milk and let my breastmilk supply slowly dry up. Let's hope it happens as planned.

Playschool at Children's Corner

The one thing about not blogging regularly is that after a while you get lazy and forget about the little things that happened. The last 2 months have been a whirlwind of activities.

First, Sean started playschool twice a week at Children's Corner at the beginning of Feb. Then I had to prepare for Mary's wedding, getting my dress done, making the wedding chocolate wrappers, the flower basket and running around to do the countless little things that needed to be done for the wedding.

At the same time, Sean and I had flu which didn't seem to go away. I think it took 3 weeks for the flu to go away completely. All these made Sean a really whiny and grumpy little boy.

So he was one of the whiniest little boy at playschool. He really hated the ring of the bells. It meant that he had to stop whatever he was doing and do the next activities.

However, over the last two months, I'm seeing improvements. He is not as whiny now and is actually interested in learning new things. His speech has always been a source of concern with me since he does not speak much for a boy his age. However, he is at least interested to learn when we teach him new words now, whether or not he can say it properly. Previously, he would refuse point blank at even trying to say new words. He really enjoys lesson time at playschool. Sam took him to school once and was amazed that he took his toys and put them back on to the shelves on his own.

Today, while Akong and Ama were buying fish at the supermarket , he was signing the letter 'f' with his fingers and was telling them 'fish'. His words are not clear but I'm just glad he is interested in learning to speak now.

Mary's wedding

As I said, the week before a wedding is full of hectic last minute preparations. I left the last 150 of making the chocolate wrappers for Mary’s wedding favors and flower basket last minute because …well… you only get excited about doing things like this nearer to the date, don’t you? =P.

I also decided to get a seamstress to make my dresses. To cut the story short, I went to the material shop so many times because I had a fickle moment about my dresses and decided to change the design totally. I was going "Why did I buy flowery materials?!!!! I don’t even wear flowery dresses most of the time. What made me even think about making flowery dresses?”

I think it would have been easier just to get someone to take care of Sean for me so I could go for a proper shopping spree. But I’ve already bought the materials, so I might as well get them made. Oh well... Lesson learned: If you decide to make a dress, plan the design first before buying the material.

Anyway.....The wedding was wonderful. David serenaded Mary as she walked down the aisle. It was done in the garden just outside the Holiday Villa Victorian Ballroom. The flowers were perfect. Everything went as beautifully as it could be. Unfortunately, we had to take Sean out 6 times during the wedding ceremony though. He was whining because he was hungry and yet refused to eat what I had in the bag. Finally, I got him some peanuts from the cocktail snack table and he was quite happy then.

The next day, we went to Ipoh for the 2nd wedding dinner with David’s parent’s guests. The day was hot and there was no air-conditioning in the car, so the bridal bouquet wilted in the hot sun. Fortunately, the bride and groom went ahead earlier in another car, so they weren't wilted like us. So we replaced the flowers with whatever flowers they manage to bring from the previous day’s dinner. Weddings are just full of surprises, lots of last minute scrambling, but always lots of fun. =D

On the wedding day, I shamelessly got the photographer to take our family picture, just the 3 of us. We don’t’ really have a good family picture, because we’re usually not dressed for it and we have no one to take pictures for us. So this is the family photo.


I also raided Mary and David’s wedding pictures for Sean’s photos. After all, most of his photos are taken by my hand-phone camera or my old camera which doesn’t give clear pictures. So it’s nice to have some good quality pictures.

We play and play and play.....

So what have we been playing at?

We play water gun, except the gun is still to big for his small hands to hold properly. So sometimes he holds it upside down! Most of the time I let him play water in the bathroom. If I ask him, Sean do you want to bath, he'll definitely say no. So I ask, "Sean do you want to play water?" That usually gets an affirmative answer! Ha ha ha.....

So I let him play for a while and then bathe him while he plays. Sometimes he runs to the corner of the bathroom when I try to bath him. LOL... for a boy who likes playing water, he really doesn't like to bathe. I wish he bathes himself more often like the other day.

Driving around in the car is a definite favourite. He loves to zoom around the living room and garden.


Recently, I got him a dump truck. At first I got him a kiddy boxing glove (cheapo type) because his daddy has just started to learn to box. I thought it'll be cute when both of them can play boxing with each other. But he doesn't like it and the gloves weren't really nice. So I returned and swapped for a dump truck that comes with a scope, rake, and a small water container. I also got a packet of kidney beans so we have something to scoop and dump with. We've been playing this " Scoop and dump" game almost everyday!

About the scrapbook above. I've been inspired by Jazzmint, a blogger mummy, who is very creative and talented. Unfortunately, most of the time I take pictures with my handphone, thus the pictures aren't as clear as I want them to be. Anyway, thanks Jazzmint for sharing your scrap-pages to inspire us!

Sean bathed himself!

Today Sean decided to bathe himself! I guess the first time your child do something is exciting for the parents =D It doesn't matter that it's something so mundane like having a bath....ha ha ha

After his number 2, we washed him up. He refused to come out of the bathroom and wanted to play water. So we let him as long as one of us watched over him. Sam asked Sean if he wanted to bathe and Sean some soap and rubbed all over himself. Took the ladle and rinsed himself. Of course, he only washed his chest ad cheeks. His daddy helped him to finish up, just to make that all those soap are rinsed away. I had the pleasure to be the audience without having to do the work! =P

Over the CNY

We went to the Aquaria at KL Conference centre on Chinese New Year Day. Sean was really excited to see some of the exhibits and was totally entranced by the walkalator inside the aquarium tunnel. He went on and off the walkalator and ran excitedly through the throng of people. He was playing "Come and catch me" game with me. So of course, I had to chase after him, moving against the crowd inside the tunnel. He was really naughty at that point!

For me, the highlight of the place was a ceiling to floor glass wall which covered one side of the huge aquarium. When you stand right at the front and the fish swim pass you, you feel that you're under water. We had sharks, turtles and many types of fish swimming right in front of our eyes. When I went scuba diving, I always had a tiny fear of big fish coming too near me. It's exciting but I never know if they were going to bite or not! So it was a real treat to be able to see these fish up close without being wet. =D


On 2nd day of CNY, Akong and Ama came back and we had our family reunion dinner. The days following that we had relatives over for dinner and went over to visit friends.

Sean had his first lip to lip kiss with a girl, Kristen. I don't think they understood it..ha ha ha..I said " Kiss Kristen , Sean" , and both of them puckered up and kissed. They were really cute!

I didn't catch it on camera though. The 2 kids went apart looking for toys after that and refused to kiss for the camera.

It was all rather fun to go to parties almost every day =D