I am Sarah!

This funny incident happened on Saturday at the Botanic Gardens.  We had a picnic cum early Mid-Autumn Festival celebration at the Botanic Gardens with my sisters-in-law and families.  While we were walking from the car park to the Swan Lake, we came across this little girl who is about the same age as, or if not, slightly younger like Sarah.  She saw Sarah and pointed to her and said “Meimei”.  Sarah heard this and said to the little girl “(I’m) Not meimei.  I am Sarah”.  I had to laugh out loud cos she was really funny when she said that, very indignant and serious.  Come to think of it, we always have little kids or toddlers calling Sarah “Baby” or “Meimei”.  Does she look that babyish?  I always have this urge to go up to them and say “She is not a baby anymore.  You are the one who is still a baby”.  Of course, in a playful way.

Singlish

Sometimes when we talk, we tend to let a bit of Singlish slip in, like ‘lah’, ‘mah’, ‘leh’, etc.  Recently, I noticed my little girl has learnt to speak Singlish!  Oh dear!  Not that I am ashamed of Singlish.  Not at all, it is, afterall, a unique trait of Singaporeans.  However, I do feel that we should start our children off on the right path and teach them to speak proper English at this young age.  So whenever I hear her speak Singlish, I will remind her not to speak that, and make her repeat the sentence in proper English.

So whilst I am diligently correctly her English, this forgetful mommy will sometimes let Singlish slip into my words.  Old habits die hard.  And now the tables have overturned, its my daughter’s turn to correct me.  Whenever she catches me speaking Singlish, she will say “Mommy, cannot say ‘mah’ (or ‘leh’, ‘lah’).  And this mommy will sheepishly repeat in proper English.  This has happened quite a few times, and usually I am even not aware I had spoken Singlish.  Looks like mommy has to be more mindful of her language :p.

Sharing

Not wanting to share, that is.  We went to visit a friend today, and I have to say I am very disappointed with Sarah’s refusal to share the toys with her friends.  She has this habit of holding on to a toy she likes and refuses to share with friends despite being asked nicely.  I tried to persuade her, even disciplined her, she is one stubborn gal.

I am particularly upset cos she was not like this before.  She used to be willing to share her toys when asked.  But lately, I noticed she has developed this undesirable trait.  Part of the disappointment I felt was also with myself.  I have allowed myself to slack and failed to be consistent in Sarah’s training.  When I shared this with hubby, he was also very upset and disappointed, and this coming from a daddy who usually cuts Sarah a lot of slack, I know some serious work needs to be done.

So from now on, I will do “tomato staking”, a discipline and training tip from Raising Godly Tomatoes. Here, a child is liken to a tomato plant, which if left to itself unattended, grows too fast and becomes unwieldy, but if properly cared for, will produce excellent fruit.  The parent is to keep the child close to him/her, and constantly train the child to be as what you want him to be.  I know this will not be easy and will be a battle of wills between us, and I pray God will grant me strength, wisdom and patience, as I press on.

Her First Drawing

We left the little girl to her own devices for a while as I chatted with my mom.  After a while, she came running to us with this piece of paper.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw it.  What strike me the most was that the drawings filled the entire piece of paper.  Until now, she has only been drawing circles with little dots as eyes, nose and mouth, and her drawings have never filled a piece of paper.

I asked her what she drew, and she said the small face is Sarah moon, the big face is mama moon, and the other object is a pear with the letter A.  Hmmmm, I never knew she can write the letter A.

I am very happy with her development.  I am looking forward to more drawings from her.

The 4 Ws

The little girl has become so talkative. She can yak the whole day from morning to night and she loves to ask questions. Now, she has 4 favourite W questions. They are:

So Happy

I cooked baked honey ribs for dinner today. This is my 2nd attempt. The first I cooked this dish, the ribs turned out quite tough. So today, I did some research and made some changes to the way I cooked it. First, I covered the dish and baked for 45min, then removed the cover, pour some more marinade on it and baked uncovered for another 15 min. It turned out to be soft and tender. Hubby commented it was very nice, even better than those sold outside. He also said my cooking has improved tremendously over the last year, and now he is even looking forward to dinner everyday. I asked him “Huh, you mean you used to dread dinner?” “No lah, just that there was nothing to look forward to.” Hee hee, what he said made my day. At least, all that time hovering over the stove, getting oily and hot is worth it.

Water Fun

We had a mommy’s gathering yesterday at the IMM outdoor water playground. I thought that Sarah would enjoy the water play, but she was scared of the water spraying onto her face, so she tried her best to remain as dry as possible.

Unfortunately, she still got wet (haha). But after this, she was extremely careful in avoiding the water sprays.

Later her friends came, and one of the jiejie passed her this water toy, and it became her focus.

She even watered the plants!!

See the other children and Grace having so much fun.

I like this photo taken with Grace. See how she held on to Sarah’s arm, like a couple.

Thank God for blessing us with good weather for the kids to have fun, and for the mommies to fellowship.