technological tidbit from our toddler

So i was in the car with our offspring, heading into town to pick up ww after work, and i thought of something to discuss with my mum about. I hooked up my bluetooth headset and called her, only to be interrupted by our toddler a couple of sentences in:
"Who you talking to??"
"erm....i'm talking to nai-nai."...i had forgotten that she couldn't see me wearing the tiny bluetooth headset and was thus wondering what i was doing talking to myself (reminds me of the toilet incident). LOL Her reply was a bright and chirpy "okay!".
"Do you want to talk to nai-nai?" i asked her. "Yes!" so i passed her the phone and she chatted with her grandparents (cue laughter from my dad) for a while before concluding the conversation with "I wanna go home now. Bye bye!"

More tidbits from our toddler

Our little one is getting rather active and her cognitive leaps have been rather interesting to observe.

My mum offered her some fruits and she had some and then declared that she was full, even patting her tummy to show us. =) Then my baby cousin came along and my mum offered her some fruits as well, but our daughter interjected, telling my mum rather solemnly that "C (my cousin) doesn't want any fruits". Rather interesting this, that she'd say that instead of "no, my fruits, cannot give her!" lol

While getting into the car to go home, she said "i'm sleepy" and promptly fell asleep within a few minutes of driving. What a gal!

Tidbits from the toddler

As she is picking up more phrases and increasing her vocabulary, we see more tidbits from our toddler daughter in our daily interactions.

We were having a meal and we thought she was done with dinner, so her Mama finished off her rice (Japanese rice! Yum!), and when she found out, she said "You ate my rice?!? I'm sad." and made a face. LOL

She has picked up the habit of saying "Yah" instead of "Yes", and she does so, I'd try to correct her and she'd dip her head and say (with a note of exasperation) "Yeeeeeees".

Phrases and phases

So apparently our offspring is having the "terrible twos" phase and it is hard to describe the mixture of feelings one goes through while watching her. It ranges from happiness (how she makes us laugh) to frustration (when she doesn't get her way and throws a tantrum) to amazement (when she acts all grown up). =)

She had a playdate with my mum's friend's (younger) granddaughter recently and phrases she said included:
"Come Mei-mei, hold my hand."
"Don't touch my backside!"
"I like duck rice"
"Flying!" *arms outstretched and running around* (they were at the airport)

She is the light of our lives and really brightens our day, so much so that going back to work after a long weekend really gives us withdrawal symptoms. =)

A peek into our family life

We had quite a busy weekend, which started early on Friday, thanks to National Day celebrations held by my company. Since it was a free and easy day, I picked up the offspring from her playgroup (and gave my in-laws a break!) and brought her to my office. Interesting thing was that due to her age (and that most of the events were held in open areas), she didn't need a pass to get in. LOL She also contributed an artwork for my office cubicle wall, entitled (i think) "A study on circles" highlighter on A4 paper. We picked up wibblewamble from her office and headed off for dinner at the new place in MBFC (food was disappointing, service was terrible and price was steep).

Our Saturdays are typically spent running around doing errands or attending events, but for some strange reason, we ended up at MBS and had DB for lunch while the offspring took her nap. We decided to go visit the Arts Science Museum with the Harry Potter exhibition and for some strange reason, our muggle daughter got very excited about Harry Potter, especially his car (which was dangled from the ceiling).  The exhibition itself was pretty fun although she was spooked by some of the darker bits. Dinner was interesting (and pricey) at this new Jap teppanyaki place where we had our own teppanyaki chef. I now know what proper teppanyaki should taste like (i.e. not drenched in oil and butter).

Sunday we had breakfast at one of our fav brekkie places (although it was a little pricey)) and then enjoyed the live country western music at our church canteen, which is always fun, especially with our daughter dancing to the music, waving excitedly to me, and talking to her grandparents (sometimes all three at the same time). Nice for us to have some time together as my parents took her for the afternoon and we visited the Tanjong Pagar railway station as they were having an event there.

We ended off Sunday with dinner at the extended family, then while heading home with our daughter repeatedly asking one of the hardest questions we've heard to date: "what time is Harry Potter's car?". My silly answer? I'll tell you what time it is, it's sleepy time. (Yes i know none of that makes sense lol). She promptly fell asleep before we got home. What a gal.

Quotable quotes

The grandparents bought a toy fishing set for the daughter and they were all happily playing with it (yes, all 3 of them) when i made the quip to the wifely person:

z: notice that the fishing set only comes with one fishing rod?
w: yes, i wonder why.....
z: because if you give a spare rod, you spoil the child!
w: sometimes i also wonder why i married you......

Aladdin's folly

We have watched Disney's Aladdin so many times, thanks to my daughter that playback of teh movie stutters sometimes. Worse still, the wifely person and I can now sing the songs from it on cue, and often have them stuck in our heads as earworms.

An interesting observation though, is that obviously none of the characters in the movie have an interest or background in legal work. They were presented with the dilemma of Ali wanting to marry Princess Jasmine but can't because Princess J can only marry a prince. She is also obligated under law to marry before her 18th or 19th birthday.

Now this is towards the end of the show now, and Ali only has 1 more wish from the lamp. As stated earlier, he can't wish for more wishes (amongst other provisos like not being able to kill, make someone fall in love, or raise anyone from the dead). Being the good person that he is, Ali wanted to wish Genie free.

What happened in the show was that he did set Genie free with his last wish, and the Sultan (Jasmine's father) promptly changed the law so that the Princess could marry whoever she wished. This is just silly, since he could have changed the law that requires her to marry before her birthday, then the happy couple will not be under any pressure to get together. LOL

This convinient changing of the law is actually quite inconvinient legally since it sets a dangerous precedent and hence, people in the legal profession are usually loath (unless it is flawed) to changes in the law. Instead, the simple workaround is for Ali to wish he was a Prince, marry Jasmine, hand the lamp to her (as a wedding present?) and get her to wish Genie free (after 2 free wishes, might as well not waste it afterall Birkin bags are hard to come by). Problem solved!

Education in Music

We love music, as evident from our combined CD collection (which is more than 2000 CDs and counting). More importantly, I (we) love playing music and this is evident from the number of musical instruments at home: 1 piano (ubiquitous in Singaporean homes), 1 portable Korg keyboard, 1 venerable Yamaha EL-90 electone and 1 ukelele. We also have musical instrument apps on our ipads/iphones, including drum sets, modern synthesizers, classic pianos, guzhen, and the ocarina. Wibblewamble prefers to sing, hence we make a great pair, but i digress.

A question was posed to me during lunch as we were talking about learning music. When i mentioned that i do play the piano (or actually keyboards), I was asked: "So what grade are you?"
This is facinating from so many points of view (when i say facinating, i mean it is a bugbear of mine lol).

• It reflects our Singaporean attitude of measuring one's success using a formal qualification system.


• It shows our kiasu competitive streak in wanting to compare against others.


• It demonstrates plain ignorance in trying to apply an exact science to an inexact art (the engineer in me gave up trying to define one's level of musicness).

There is no leveling up for music and there is no direct comparison. Much like college drop-out Steve Jobs (may he rest in peace), even if you have grade 8 in Piano, does not mean you can play better than someone who has a lower grade. It just means you passed the examinations and you managed to play 3 examination pieces well. Whoopdeedo.

Because of this need for paper qualifications by local parents, some piano teachers do teach songs to their charges for the sole purpose of taking examinations, changing songs only when one examination is passed, often to the next set of examination pieces. Is this any way to learn and appreciate music? When i was younger (but old enough to discern) I once told my piano teacher, "if you teach me only examination pieces, i quit now." Of course she did not, and she even embraced music other than the classical pieces she was great at and we even shared pointers (i came in with experience on this) on playing pop or jazz or even rock pieces (Joplin FTW!).

Coming a close second as facinating question of the day is "what brand if your ukelele" Once again, this obsession to compare! Especially if the next question is "how much did you buy it for" *facepalm* Sometimes we have to learn that not everything has a dollar or extrinsic value.

For the record, it may seem like sour grapes that i didn't pass my ABRSM grade 8. But also for the record, I only took ABRSM grade 3 and grade 7, about 3 years from starting the formal piano lessons (when i was 12). And aside from piano, I was under a scholarship from Yamaha for Electone (completed grade 5 (w fundamentals), teacher's grade, if you must know), and also doing drums as well (grade 6). So paper qualifications-wise, i do have some, although one ability that i'm thankful for is that my ability to replicate a song (or at least play a version of it) after hearing it. More importantly, i feel, is that i enjoy myself playing music and do try to spread this joy to the people who listen. One day, i hope to pass on this joy and this love to our offspring, in the hope that she'd view music the same way we do, and i'm sure she'd do better not to cringe when someone asks her "so what grade are you?"

Men behaving badly

Interesting reading this asiaone post(from stomp) about a Caucasian male who was allegedly drunk and took a cab then refused to pay. When called to the scene, the police allegedly said they could not do anything except advise him to make a report at the police station. I actually have a personal experience to relate about the effectiveness of our police and criminal justice system, in that although I was put in a position of fearing for my life as I was in my car with some random guy kicking in the door and window from the outside (thank goodness they were made sturdy) and a) after calling the police, they arrived half an hour later after (we had all cleared out as the big bad wolf ran out of puff and stormed off); b) a police report was made but after investigating, the officer told me that i'd have to pursue this as a civil matter. Wonderful waste of time. Sometimes i wonder what would have happened if my window had given way or i had come out of the car to stop the guy. Hmmmm.

Anyways, I digress from talking about a more recent incident that happened to us as well while we were at the airport on the way back home, involving a Caucasian. For once, we were fairly early and the check in counters had just opened. So there were, heading towards the counter, me pushing the trolley full of bags, and the wibblewamble carrying our offspring. We were very happy to see no queues for checking in and headed straight for the nearest available counter. As we were proceeding there, we saw a Caucasian male with a suitcase and a golfbag on his trolley come from the business class side of the queue around the barrier to the counters.

What happened next shocked me. He moved very quickly to cut off wibblewamble who (i say again) was carrying our baby in her arms, and pushed his passport energetically at the counterstaff. To do that, he nearly ran down wibblewamble with his baggage trolley and arrived so close to her that the girl behind the counter thought they were together! A diagram of the incident (hyperbole and a half style):







After ww glared at him as i was catching up several steps behind (and picking up my jaw from the floor), we went to the next available counter with nary a word from him to us, let alone an apology. Just for good measure, we went to an available counter 3 counters away.

I really don't understand how shameless and brainless this idiot is. I wouldn't make much of the colour of his skin, but he really had the "white man superior" syndrome. Amazing thing was, because he had to push his golfbag on his trolley to the seperate oversized baggage check-in, i saw that nearly ran over another guy with his trolley again with nary an apology.

I hope his golf scores are always in the triple digits, but from his character, I wouldn't be surprised if he cheats at his golf scores as well. What a douchebag.

conversation conundrums

We've been having some issues with our ceiling, as the paint has cracked and a stain has appeared. Possible leak from the outside? We don't know.

So i was chatting with ww on gmail and asking her whether the guy has arrived....
ww: He came
z: He saw,
z: He concurred?

Which reminds me of the famous phrase in Jingo: Veni Vidi Vetinari
Although also in the book is the phrase: Veni, Vermini, Vomini LOL!

Which was what i wanted to do after i managed to pwn myself. First the wife sends me the link for cute diapers, and my first thought (understandably, since i'm a guy) was "Ha! All these silly parents! Paying good money for design over functionality". But then my second and third thoughts kicked in, which were "I wonder how was my offspring look in that", followed by "OMG, i've so got to get me a pack of those, just to see how cute she looks in it". I'm so ashamed of myself, but i'm still amused (and i might still buy them!) LOL

wonderful weekend

As usual, our weekends are just packed. But there is a certain level of satisfaction and this weekend just past was special. We started out saturday well and after a scrumptious lunch by my mother-in-law, went to visit ww's grandma. Boistrous noisy play was the game of the day as the various kids (including ours) tried to outdo each other in enthusiasm and playfulness. LOL. Good fun.

Got to play soccer with my friends at East Coast, and prove that although age has prevented us from running too much or too fast, we still have the skillz to put on a classy act (including a memorable trap and volley on the turn). A young 'un even remarked "woah, how did you do that? magic?" after a particularly silky pass went around him. Capped off the day with a soy bean miso hot pot at home with our friends, good fun all round with great food and even better company. What more could we ask for?

Then came Sunday, went for champagne brunch to celebrate my mum's birthday. Excellent spread of food and bubbly drinks, and we were very entertained by the live 3 piece jazz band (singer, guitarist and bassist). Stuffed my face silly and didn't feel the need to eat anything til quite late that night. Even managed to squeeze in a visit to Jeanie, and she's looking well, still ever the bright-eyed border collie. Our daughter was also doing her best to entertain everyone with her antics, including trying to play table tennis, go for a swim (fully clothed) and breaking into dance at various times when she hears music. =) To cap off my Sunday, she said "Deh-di". *melted*

Social Mobility

Read a touching article from a UK newspaper online (props to mrbrown).

The key to social mobility is having a devoted and determined family
Because, to my mind, social engineering isn't the best way to propel a child out of a council estate and onto better things. There is a much more effective solution — and my friends and I are living proof of it.
I didn't end up eating £100 steaks because someone put a 'Poor Kid' sign around my neck and sent me to be taught with the children of millionaires.
No, I got there thanks to my mum and dad, who worked their socks off to ensure their children were well-fed, well-clothed and well educated.

I can relate very strongly to this and do constantly feel guilty about not spending enough time with my parents, even though they understand that we are busy these days working and raising our little one. I come from a family where only my Dad worked (really hard at times), and thanks to capital gains, managed to put me through university (both degrees, although i did get some help in the form of a 'local' scholarship), for which i am forever grateful. These days I find my broad education in a wide range of technologies a blessing as i talk to engineers, researchers and inventors, because i can understand their tech-speak and relate to them easily. Growing up, i never had to worry about food or clothing, and i got pretty much whatever i wanted. However whatever i wanted was influenced by upbringing and conditioning by my mother, hence i never asked for a holiday to disneyland lol. My parents never held back when it came to my education, whether it be trips to the science centre (however many), or music lessons. In fact, there was a period when my fees per month added to more than $500 (piano, organ and drums) (although for a good time i was on scholarship which did help heh). It is with this background that I can entertain (largely) myself and others (when i play for mass).

Which then leads to, what can our offspring achieve? I think what we have/can achieve is freedom for her. She will have choices which we did not have before, since we were told to pick our degrees (thence professions) with one eye on what we want to do for the rest of our lives, which leads to traditional (boring?) roles like doctor, lawyer, accountant and engineer.

I once discussed about being thankful to my Mum and her reply was that we repay our debt to our parents by bringing up our kids the same way they brought us up, with plenty of love and affection. And to that aim we will strive.

Wilful kids

This NZ herald article used this term and i like it! Our daughter is now 13 months old and becoming quite a handful, always trying to get what she wants and throwing a tantrum when she doesn't get it, i.e. wilful. =)

We have been trying to set up the right atmosphere for her and constantly remind her that we love her. She's begun to reciprocate and demonstrate this by hugging us and (more recently) giving us a kiss. Of course there will be times when she wonders why she can't do something, and most of the times, she can't understand our explanation. She tries to say 'please' in order to get her way, although it only comes out (after a big intake of breath) as "pah" (exhale). People have also noticed that she has a good set of lungs 'cos she'd yell (really loudly) when she doesn't get her way. LOL.

From the same NZherald article:
Mantras of parenting
* Atmosphere is everything
* Take a break
* Boys need to hear: "you've got what it takes"
* Girls need to hear: "you're lovely and capable"
* Remember what it was like to be a child
* Children will repeat whatever behaviour gets them what they want
* Don't sweat the small stuff
* We all want to be happy

Walking on faith...

Our daughter has started walking a couple of days after her birthday and it is quite interesting and heartening to see her advance so quickly from those tentative unsure steps to practically flying now. In fact, she's walking so fast that we had to buy her proper walking shoes to stop her foot from pronating (yet another new word i learn as a parent). Outcome? She's walking even faster now! *fainted*

There is something about watching your child toddle around the place. First, rather unsteadily, holding on to stuff on the way during her mini-breaks from walking. You can see her planning how to get from the sofa to the room by holding on to the chaise, the dining room chair and the corridor wall ... or maybe i'm just imagining that bit, although it was still a bit of a shock to realise she had walked all the way to her room. LOL

Speaking of parenting styles, there's a WSJ article (hattip to ww) that seems quite accurate, since we noticed that we both have different parenting styles. We do adapt from each other's so sometimes we swap the 'mothering' and 'fathering' roles, but i do believe it is working well together. I feel like hugging my daughter after reading the article..... =)

Some excerpts from the article:

Minor injuries
DADS: Tend to distract the child by directing her attention to another activity or carrying her to another part of the playground. This can help kids develop the resiliency needed to shake off small setbacks and move on.
MOMS: Tend to comfort and soothe the child and encourage her to talk about what she is feeling. This can help a child feel secure and safe and express emotions in words.

Playtime:
DADS: Interactions are more rambunctious and physical. Dads are more likely to startle babies, laugh, play physical games such as tossing them in the air, and spark peaks of emotion or excitement. This is believed to help kids develop self-regulatory skills.
MOMS: Tend to interact face-to-face with babies, babbling back and forth, responding to subtle shifts in facial expressions and touching the baby affectionately. This is believed to teach children to read facial expressions, use words to communicate and to enjoy close, intimate contact.

Our baby is one!

Another milestone today as she turned one. At the same time, she's also fighting roseola virus, so we've been dosing her with medication.

She can now stand on her own now, aside from cruising, and has even danced to some music, albeit on the spot without moving her feet. A few words have been added to her vocab and she is quite good at signing now (although we need to be more diligent in teaching her more signs!).

Hardly a day goes by when we are not amazed by her and her antics and as much as we want her to grow up, we also want to save this moment in the scrapbook inside us, to be taken out and savored when she is older (especially during her rebellious times).

Happy birthday little one, may you always be loved, blessed and cherished by all around you.

Walking with baby

So our almost one year-old is starting to walk, first by standing up with support, then cruising, and now walking using a wooden walker. This presents some interesting issues in terms of baby proofing our house. It has taken some time, but we use a combination of approaches: rearranging our furniture, removing some things to a higher height and teaching her not to touch stuff (my CD cabinet is built in).

Pretty much letting her just do whatever she wants, even encouraging her to crawl more (she still does, since it's faster lol). The 2 times that i have cracked out the walking wings, she expressed her displeasure (very loudly), which makes it one more almost-new product to be either sold, or saved for the next little one (if any).

Every little thing she does, each developmental milestone fills us with pride and sorrow, because our little girl is growing up so quickly. Exciting times, especially since we are approaching her first birthday. =)

battle hymn

So there has been a furor both online and in main stream media about a book one law professor wrote on raising her children, with quite a bit discussion to date. Because of misunderstandings, both she and her offspring have come out to clear any misunderstandings.

Personally, i'm ambivalent about it. Until 10 months ago, i wouldn't have understood, but now do I understand the situation she presents, i.e. how to decide what is best for your child. We ask ourselves time and again, are we stimulating her enough? Or too little? Is she progressing well? Are we doing the right thing? It can get a little overwhelming and her way (not saying it's the Asian way) suggests the extreme, that you don't know how far they can go until you 'stretch' them. We have our own style of parenting which we adapt from what we read and learn, and try our best to provide for her development in every way. Not sure how this will go, but it'll be an experience for all involved! Stay tuned for more updates on this. =)

Start of the new year

Season's greetings! I thought it would be a good start to the new year to dedicate this post to my family and what i'm thankful for.

One of the most significant events of 2010 (and also of my life) was the birth of our daughter. She is really the light of our lives and brings us plenty of joy daily. It has been kind of a rollercoaster ride, but most of it has been taking place above the clouds so parenthood has definitely given us more smiles and laughters. Overall, we have changed, along with our priorities, for the better (i hope) and find it amusing that both the wifely-person and I are quite self-conscious as we seem to be constantly asking ourselves: "is growing and learning well?", "is she eating enough?", "are we spoiling her?". I guess we just want to be good parents and provide her the best without producing a brat, which is a difficult balancing act, but we'll try.

Recently had a New Year's day party at our place with both sets of grandparents in attendance. Mother-in-law prepared a turkey while my mum prepared the veges and it was a grand old time at home, especially with our daughter being very happy the entire night. I put it down to having her favourite people all under one roof, like playing futsal at East Coast with one's soccer heros i guess. LOL

One of the remarks made at the party inspired this post, as my father-in-law said during his time, his memory and enjoyment of watching his daughters grow up while infants were limited to ferrying them around and watching them sleep at night. This was common among our parents' generation as they all came from relatively big families (more than 6) so their parents could not help with their grandkids the way our parents could. So they had to hire babysitters and nannys in order to cope with making a living at the same time. These days, we are blessed and I am always grateful as we have my in-laws helping to take care of her during the weekdays, ensuring that she is well fed, well taken care of, and well watched over. If that's not enough, they also cook dinner for us. I guess with the changing times, the makeup of the family is evolving and so we have smaller nucleus families but closer core family ties, and for this i am thankful. I only hope that one day when our daughter grows up, she looks back and is just as thankful for all this as I am now.

Have a great 2011!