Ace's First Trip Overseas

Brought Ace overseas for three days...

Here are some lessons I learnt about bringing overseas which may be of help to you:

1. Prepare lots of food. Food is the ONE BRIBE that can make them be happy and willing to sit down and not move around so much.
   
   
2. Dun worry about whether the hotel room is baby proof. With your child's help, you can easily baby proof it within 5 minutes because somehow, they will see all the dangerous "TOYS" and run and play with it immediately.
   
   
3. Bring at least one fav stuffed toy along, it will help your child to feel more at home and rest earlier and better.
   
   
4. Bring a bottle of water along during the plane ride. He can drink the water during take off and landing so that his ears will not feel too uncomfortable.
   
   
5. Dun only remember to bring toys only for the plane ride. Remember also to bring toys along for playing in the hotel room or your kid will be sure to be bored to death.. so boh pian.. cos they are so bored, they will start playing with the hotel room switches for the
   lights and lamps, drawing on the hotel table...
   
   
6. If you intend to go to the pool, a float, a ball and some toys are a must ;)
   
   
7. Bring a cap for your child. In case it rains and you dun have an umbrella on hand, at least you still have a cap.
   
   
8. Dun worry about your child. They can take care of themselves and they are the greatest networkers in the world. They will make lots of friends and will naturally know how to stand up to bullies.
   
   
9. Bring a scarf along for your child. A scarf is really useful because you can use it to keep YOU warm.. keep your child warm and most importantly, 'belt' your child to the babyseat.. cos NOT ALL BABYSEATS have safety measures called belts! At least non that I went to did.. cept for the one in the hotel.. When tat happens, your child will tend to want to come down and scout around.
   
   
10. Bring lots of extra clothing. You never know when he needs and extra change and remember to bring extra pants and socks for when he sleeps in an air conditioned hotel room at night.
    
    
11. Watch your diet and your language... your child will suddenly be with you 24/7. He is watching your every single move... if you dun do it right, he will sure to follow as well.
    
    
12. Lessen waiting time. Dun fall for the trick and board the plane too quick. While airlines usually allow people with children to board the plane first, take your time! Toddlers DO NOT like to wait in a confined area. Board the plane as late as you can and let your child run around the hotel as much as possible before you board so that they will use up all their excess energy and be willing to settle down or even sleep during the plane ride.
    
    
13. Lessen waiting time! This is SO SO important. Plan your trip such that you can check into the hotel IMMEDIATELY upon reaching and that you can leave the hotel once you check out. In the event that you cannot arrange it this way, make sure you have back up plans about what to do. Wasting 5 hours before your flight doing nothing is no fun... I can PERSONALLY attest to that! (I nearly died waiting myself...)
    
    
14. If it is a longer trip, consider investing in a portable DVD and bringing their fav VCDs (eg, Barney) along... that really helps to 'waste' lots of time and gives you some free time.
    
    
15. Eat in the hotel. Usually the food in the hotel is not so oily and in our experience tastes better as well. IN our case, it is not even necessarily cheaper! Less oily food is healthier for baby as well.
    
    
16. Last but not least, bring lots of VP. At least you can make sure your child is getting all the nutrients he needs and that he is well protected from any of the viruses that are flying around. VP also makes a great snack when you need something to make him sit down. When we were there, Ace would come to the luggage and search for VP himself.
    
    

Anyway, it was quite a fun trip. For more trip details and the pictures, you can view our pictures here:
http://verityy.multiply.com/photos/album/25/Aces_First_Trip_Overseas-_Phuket


Previous Post: Balloon

Balloon

Ace finds a new way to play with the balloon...

He keeps going around to anyone who would listen and ask them to "Chui!"

Apparently, only Waigong bothers to entertain him.. hahaha ;)



Previous Post: Ace The Photog

Ace The Photog

Ace has a new hobby... taking photos ;)

But he wants to be the photographer.

The other day, he took my phone and stuck it on his forehead.. and then he said, "Xiao xiao..." and pressed the shutter button.

Here are his 'works' for your enjoyment..







Not bad right? Quite 'artisitic' leh!

Previous Post: Sports Day

Sports Day

Popo's school (Kinderland Siglap- Learninghill) has got a sports day for the children and so she asked me if I wanted to bring Ace along since there would be lots of children there and he loves company...

So early in the morning.. I woke up trying to get ready to go to east coast for the event. Alas, I found out that my keys were gone! Darn.. dunno where they were. Popo has already left the house, Ah Yee not back yet, Wai Gong also not at home..

Me, Ace and Daddy were all locked in!

Finally after asking for inspiration... I found it in Mummy's black handbag. Ace had been playing 'shopping' with the handbag and the clever little boy took my keys from my bag and put it inside the pocket of the bag and zipped it up.. no wonder I couldnt find them!

We finally found them and made our way there:)

It was great fun.. intially it was aerobic exercise time... They played High 5 music and Ace and the children danced around to it... Ace liked to be in the thick of things and ran inside the whole lot of children and lost himself dancing happily...

In fact, he danced so well it looked as if the other children were the accompanying dancers in the video that I took down.




After that, Ace string along a can to take part in the 1.6KM walk...
He walked and walked and walked and walked... he was so tired but he kept walking. He fell down and grazed his knees but kept walking as me and Daddy cheered him along. I was so proud that he completed the race ;)

By the time he was done, he was so thirsty he finished two packets of strawberry milk within record time!

After that, we went to mac donalds for a hearty breakfast and then went home to catch up on our beauty sleep.. hahaha ;)

What an exciting day!

Previous Post: Striptease

Striptease

Hahaha... yeap, Ace is talented in both singing and dancing...

In a very good mood that day, he has decided to perform a au-naturalle dance performance to thank you for all the support to this blog..






Sorry, that is as far as it goes.. HAHAHA.. what were you expecting?!

Previous Post: Cai Jiang Shi

Cai Jiang Shi

Give Ace a mike and he will start to 'perform'...

I think all the experience he has while he is in my tummy really helps.. hahaha ;)

I think he is a born speaker ;)




And then, somehow, dunno how.. he managed to find another microphone while going through the cupboards (which is his current fav hobby) and so, these days, he will walk around the whole house and do this:



Previous Post: Bear

Bear

Ace is starting to get more and more attached to the bear that belongs to Ah Yee.

He will hug the bear to sleep and will also want to feed the bear and bring him along when he plays. He also rocks the bear to sleep and sayangs the bear whenever he feels like it.

I was contemplating buying him a bear when we shift back home (cos the bear belongs to Ah Yee) so that we can continue to get him ready for another sibling (should our baby making plans be successful ;) )

Anyway, I discovered a really great place to buy a bear. You can choose the bear, pump the bear up, make a wish and receive grace and love into this little heart, put the heart inside, sew it up, bath it a little and buy clothes for the bear.. and the bear even has a birth cert! hahaha...

We bought one for Yee Lin who was going away for 6 months.. hoping that the bear can keep her company and help her feel less lonely in a foreign land ;)

Here's the birth of our Angel-Bear gift called Abundance ;) (PS, in the end we replaced the shirt with wings cos the shirt not very nice...)




Previous Post: High Five

High Five

Ace loves to give everyone a high five...

While everyone was listening wholeheartedly to a sharing, he decides to 'liven' things up abit... by going around the whole room to 'high five' with other people...





Previous Post: Fish

Fish

Picasso Ace drawing his first FISH :)



I am so proud of him leh! I mean.. two years old can draw fish leh.. and the fish got tail one lor!

He will also draw:
- a longish oval shape - and call it banana
- a circle - and call it papa, mama, waigong, waipo, nainai
- many long lines- and call it ah yee

Hahahaha....

The other day, he drew something on his macna doodle and told me, "Heart!" and true enough, it was a very nice heart shape!

Ok, maybe he can be like a fashion designer (since he likes both fashion and drawing) or something ;) hahaha...

Previous Post: Drinking Water

Drinking Water

Ace presents to you a new and novel way of drinking water....





Previous Post: Diamonds are Ace's Best Friend

Diamonds Are Ace's Best Friend

Ok, you've heard the song, Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friends...

I personally am a believer of that as I love diamonds.. even though they have such low resale value... I still buy lots of them ;) hahaha..

Maybe I passed this on to Ace.. cos he loves shiny sparkly stuff..

The other day, Josephine passed me this pair of shiny shoes that she say she could not wear because it was giving her blisters... and being abundant and in receiving mode, I accepted..

The shoes had this shiny strip across it and it says, "I love diamonds" on the soles.

Somehow, Ace saw this pair of shoes and loved it! And as a result, whenever I am not looking, he will take it out and try to wear it!

Sigh... I am a little worried cos when I bring him shopping, he always prefers pink stuff over blue stuff... at the same time, whenever he sees dresses, he will touch them and say, "Wahh..... mei mei..."

Maybe he will work in the fashion industry when he grows up.. haha ;)

Previous Post: Mao Mao

Mao Mao....

Ace loves cats....

So at night when Daddy is trying to rock him to bed, Daddy will tell him, "Let's go and see cats.. " and then when they cannot find them from the window, Daddy will tell him, "Mao mao shui jiao le..." (the cat slept already).

And whenever we bring him out, when he is walking from the car park back to the lift, he will run around and ask us, "cat? cat?"

The other day, he was searching for his best friend, the cat, and found that the cat was not around.. and so he looked a little disappointed... "Maybe the cat is asleep.." I told him.

That was, until he saw the cat sitting on the bicycle... and he was so happy..

"Cat! Cat!" he pointed to it excitedly..

But for some unknown reason, the other day when we finally did find the cat again, he ran away and told us, "pa pa.." he was afraid of the cat.

"OK, if you are afraid then let's go home, ok?" I asked him..

And so he happily ran forward.. paused, turned around and waved, "Mao mao.. bye bye...."

And then ran towards the lift...

I wonder what is he afraid of...

Previous Post: Guilt

Guilt

The other time, I talked about my own guilt as a mother.

I think children have their own guilt too.

Therefore, when your children make mistakes, please do not punish them too bad. Be firm but not cruel. (Note, scolding them viciously is ALSO considered a form of punishment.) They already are aware and everytime they do something wrong, they feel guilt as well.

Some of them keep this guilt and punish themselves for the rest of their lives!

I have ever heard of a true story of a person who uglified himself and made himself friendless and lonely for his whole life. During a psychology healing process, he divulged that he did all that just because when he was in his mum's tummy, his mother felt sick and went to see a doctor.

The doctor examined the patient and told her, "There is a parasite in your body..." and the poor fetus thought the doctor was referring to HIM! (Yes, fetuses have feelings and can feel and hear what the mother hears and feels) So poor thing and he felt so guilty for making his mother sick that he punished himself for the rest of his life for it!

I bring out this point because I noticed a very strange thing.

When Ace hurts someone (albeit usually accidentally) and that person gets very upset, he will start to look grumpy and angry. I think he will feel such strong emotions (he looks so angry he will clench is jaws and his fists and go "Grrrr") that he will start to do things like hit the person or pull their hair.

I thought about it for a very long time and I think it is guilt. As he could not handle this very negative feeling, he expressed it out in the form of anger. (Anger is very often used to cover guilt. If you see people who are always so angry. They are just feeling guilty.)

How do I know?

Firstly, it is from my half past six POV knowledge. (Based on the model by renowned psychologist, Chuck Spezzano)

Secondly, he lets go or stops if I tell him that I love him and forgive him. And after that, he tells me, "pain pain... " and then pats that area that is hurt and says, "sayang.."

Thirdly, if he hits me and I have no reaction of pain, he doesn't think he has hurt me. "Pain pain?" he will ask me. "Nope," I will tell him and he stops.

But if I scream out in pain, he will hit me or pull my hair harder.

Strangely though, mostly he attempts such negative actions to get attention from us. He only does this if:

• everyone is talking to each other but ignores him
• he sees people doing loving actions to each other like hug and he is not included

Strangely also, he only 'attacks' people very close to him like next of kin... so far, ah yee, me, daddy, waipo, waigong have all been victims...

Well, as I heal, I hope he heals too ;)

Previous Post: Good Natured Ace

Good Natured Ace

I really think Ace is a very good natured little boy.

The other day, the strange baby woke up at 6am in the morning, ran to my room, climbed on my bed and started calling me, "mama... mama.... mama..."

As it was 6 am in the morning and I had been sleeping since 4.30am only, I decided to ignore him.

He did not scream, did not shout, did not make a big fuss, did not hit me, did not pull my hair....

He just continued...

"Mama... mama... mama...." in a very gentle voice.

I was too tired and so I ignored him somemore.

5 minutes later, he was still at it... "Mama... mama... mama...."

Daddy said, "Oi, since he looking for you, hand over to you lah... " and he turned over to the other side to snore.

At last resort, I woke up and asked Ace, "What do you want?"

"Do you want to watch Barney?" I asked him (I was desperate for sleep!)

"Barney... TV..." he said.

I took that for a YES and played the barney VCD at 6am in the morning while I seat him in his high chair. After that, I slept beside him on the sofa.

The next day when I woke, I thought about why he came to my room and realized that I told him the night before that I would come home and play with him. Alas when I returned, he had already fallen asleep.

So when he woke, he probably remembered my promise and was just trying to wake me to play with him.

Now I am clever...

When I go out, I tell him I will be home late and he should sleep first without waiting for me.. MUAHHAHA....

Previous Post Correction

Correction

I read a book quite some time back about children and how they learn languages...

Did you know that it will take many years for children to be able to pronounce all the letters in the alphabet and all the sounds we make with them? In fact, even when children are in primary one, there will still be a few phonetic sounds that they are incapable of saying!

Amazing isn't it? I always thought that children that age would already be ready to say ANYTHING!

The book says that because of this, we should not be too harsh and correct our children too much when they talk. If everytime they talk you tell them, "No, not this.. it is that.." it will discourage them from speaking altogether and in speech, like all other skills, practice makes perfect.

Eg, Ace is incapable of saying the word "Rock", he always says "Yock" instead because I suspect the Y sound is easier to say than the R sound. So, "Rabbit" is "Air-bit" to Ace. "Biscuit" is "Ah kit".. so on and so forth.

I usually do not correct him and let him be.

But that does not mean we should indulge in that. As parents, we need to set good examples. If we follow the way the pronounce the words and say "yock yock.." instead of "rock rock" properly to them, they will grow up pronouncing the word ROCK and YOCK.

So even if we understand what they are saying and know that if we use their shortcuts, they will understand us too, we are not supposed to do that.

We should speak good English at all times and just carry on the conversation as per normal.

Example:

Ace: Mummy, Yock Yock...
Me: Ace, you want mummy to Rock you?
Ace: Yes
Me: Ok, I will Rock you for a short while ok?
Ace: Ok...

Initially I was quite worried that not correcting them may be showing them a bad example instead. But I thought since the book is written by an expert.. I better listen to them ;) Besides, Jez Ah Ma and Yanni Jie both have ever shared about this with me before as well.

True enough, when Ace was not capable of saying more than 1 syllable, he used to call Zhen Popo "popo" and the difference between this "popo" and Waipo's "popo" is the intonation.

I never corrected him and accepted it. But I never stopped referring to her as Zhen Popo.

All of a sudden when he started to get the hang of 3 syllable words (going on to 4 syllable already), he just called her "Zhen Popo.." naturally!

Previous Post: Ace Can Draw Fish

Ace Can Draw Fish!

Remember that I told you that Ace loved to draw and would scribble on his magna doodle?:) But he kind of stopped after he destroyed the last doodle pad that I bought for him.

Well, he has recently taken an interest to drawing again.

Initially, he would find pieces of paper, pass me a pen or a pencil and ask me to, "Draw!" And then he would specify what he wanted to me draw. Eg, "Ace, Papa, Mama, fish, sun, tree, car..." etc

Recently though, he has UPGRADED to the next stage.

He would take out the pen and then draw lots of circles in loops like those roses and tell me, "Flower!"

After that, he would draw long lines and tell me, "Sun" (I usually draw a sun with sun rays shooting out when I draw the sun for him)

And then, just now, he drew this and told me, "FISH!"

Isn't my son a genius!?! I am soooooooooooooo PROUD OF HIM!

Previous Post: Courteous Baby

Courteous Baby

Ace is such a courteous baby ;)

As we have been trying to potty train him, I always tell Ace to please inform us BEFORE he wants to pee and not AFTER he pees.

Just then, he wanted to pee and then he took off his pants himself. Waipo got the 'hint' and brought him to the toilet to SHHH him.

And the clever Ace peed all by himself! ;)

So Waipo told him that he is a very clever boy!

I ran to the toilet, clapped my hands and told him he is very clever.

Then on the way from the toilet, through the kitchen to the living room, i kept clapping for him.. he was so happy... and looked as if he had won the championship for some sports event. Along the way, he bow his head down in different directions and said, "Xie xie.. xie xie..."

Hahahahaha..... AMUSING!

Previous Post: Xiao Xiao

Xiao Xiao!

Well, two years of age... people tell me is a terrible age and it is known as the terrible twos or the naughty twos because your children will defy you at all cost.

I have found though that if you do give your children choices and they get to exert their independence, most of the time, they are actually ok. Even if they say, "No," if you just accept it and respect their views, they don't usually push their luck too far.

So far, I think Ace is pretty nice most of the time. Just that he likes to exert his independence by asking me to do this and do that. When I can, I give in to him to let him get his way. But of course when it comes to matter of life and death, even if I give him choices, I use master of persuasion skills to make him choose what I want him to choose.

At last resort though, I just carry him away and distract him with something else.. haha

Anyway, as a show of independence, Ace ran into the room and told me he wanted to play the computer. I put him on the chair and let him play.

And then he said to me in a commanding voice and pushed me toward a certain direction, "Xiao xiao.. xiao xiao..."

But I did not know what he was trying to say.

"I don't understand you, Ace..."

So he pointed to the camera...

OH! He wanted me to take pictures of him playing the computer....

So I corrected him and told him that taking pictures is called Pai Zhao.. not Xiao Xiao (which means smile.. that's something i say to him often when I take pictures for him.. )

Previous Post: Stand Up

Stand Up!

It has become a norm for Ace to run to me in the middle of the afternoon and tell me, "yock yock..." which indicates that he wants to take his nap as he wants me to ROCK him.

Most of the time, I will carry him in my arms, sit down and then sing some songs to him and he will drift to lalaland ;)

But recently, he has become more demanding...

Just like just now. I was just rocking him and sitting down... and suddenly, he said to me, "Stand up..."

"Huh?" I tot I misunderstood him...

"Stand up!" He repeated.

"Do you want me to stand up?" I asked him and stood up and then he gave me a winning smile.

After like 20 seconds, I told him I have to sit down cos I am tired. And so I sat down.

"Stand up..." he said again.

"Aiyoh, Ace... Mummy is very tired leh, and mummy's hands are not so strong, can I sit down? Ok?"

He gave it a thought and said, "Ok.." and shortly after, he close his eyes and fell asleep..

Previous Post: Xie Xie

Xie Xie

Ace dances to the music but forces Stan to take a boy and "xie xie" on his behalf ;)



Previous Post: Ace-thoven

Ace-thoven

Erm... yeap, Singapore's youngest conductor.. conducting to his toy which is playing "old mac donald had a farm..." Hahaha..



Previous Post: Header

Header

Talking about strange games... Daddy likes to play strange games with Ace... eg like the header game that he loves to play...

Daddy and Ace would put their heads together and see who has the HARDER head...

Guess who usually wins?

Usually Ace of course. Ace doesnt really care if his head or Daddy's head will blue black or become painful. usually he just uses all his might and even his 'drink milk strength" hahaha.. so Daddy often give in..

This time Daddy changes strategy... see, love conquers all! Hahaha...






Previous Post: Parrot Ace