the monster & botak mama
july has been an eventful month. one that had highs and then slowly coming down to a low, before slowly climbing back up again. it was mentally exhausting. Bleh.
a week after my last post, Ollie started saying two syllabus words, or started stringing two words together. Where did that come from?? I started him on doodling with crayons and he would say “ba bac” (put back) when he wants to change the crayon. When we went down to wait for Donald in the evenings, he would say “dar down” (playground) when he sees it. He would say “weel. wound” (wheel round) whenever he saw the wheels of a stationary bus close-up. You could see him staring so intently at the way you are saying some words and him appearing to try and work the muscles in his mouth to try and repeat it. You could see him trying so hard to string a sentence to try to make you understand what he was trying to say.
The human mind and body is truly an amazing thing. the monster is my living science and psychology lesson.
the other day, him and my sister, R, had the most confusing conversation I have EVER heard between a toddler and an adult. Goodness. Ollie sometimes confuses the sound of a plane flying over (no thanks to the NDP rehearsals) with the sound of thunder. If you asked him what sound an aeroplane makes, he would make..the sound that would sound similar to what a flying plane would sound like. Don’t ask me to spell it. I can’t spell that darn sound!! But he also calls it “boom boom”. Which is also what he calls “thunder”. So cue this conversation between the two of them about aeroplanes and boom boom.
O: Aeh! Aeh! (aeroplane)
R: No, there are no planes. You can’t see the planes from here.
O: Boom boom!
R: Yes, there was thunder.
O: uhhh, aeh! aeh!
R: No, there are no planes! Look if there was a plane, I will say “hey Oliver! Come see the plane!”
O: *runs to the window* aeh!! aeh!
*facepalm* what the heck.
he wants to be so much more involved the household activities. he wants to feed the cats. he wants to swiff the floor. he wants to help water my plants. he is really interacting with Marcus especially. he got a kick out of it when he raised his arm and Marcus got on his hind legs to reach for a head rub. I just love watching the both of them.
and I reckon I need to lower my expectations as to what I need to do with Ollie during the days. The both of us usually gets bored an hour before his nap time and an hour before Donald gets home. Haha. Which is bad. Cos Ollie will do funny things like play with the switches and climb around to get my attention, and I would get quite cross with him about it. I have this expectation in my head that I need to do more with him. Alphabets. Numbers. Words. Spelling. Mandarin. I dunno. I constantly wonder if he is behind his peers.
And he is not even two.
D is taking E on playgroups, going on mothers’ meetups, attending sessions on reading for kids. To be honest, I feel like I should be doing the same thing, forgetting that E is slightly a year older than Ollie. I am a little stressed out. Thinking about pre-nursery for Ollie, especially when the competition is so high in Singapore. I am thinking about it because #2 would be coming to 1 year of age and that 4 hours that Ollie is away would give me one-on-one time with #2.
Yes, we are pregnant with #2 and that is a high. Haha.
I think I had an epiphany last night. I should really just let Ollie be Ollie. He is doing perfectly fine. He is speaking two words now, totally understands what I am trying to say, has choices in the things he wants to do, loves his drawing and painting sessions, loves playing with other kids, loves his walks, loves trying to say what I am saying to him. And he is a predominantly happy, cuddly, snuggly 18mo.
That epiphany seemed to clear up the cloud a little and Donald agreed that I wasn’t as frowny and worried looking as the past week. I didn’t feel that way either. I felt less tired, damn morning sickness is still lingering around, and I felt I wanted to do more with Ollie again and less burnt out.
Phew. Got that low outta the way. Now back to the highs of July.
Made a bald statement on 28 July! Finally. Both Donald and I raised a total of $2,740. I was nervous before going to shave. I started off being excited when I first registered for the fundraising event. As the days got closer, I had thoughts going through my mind. Were people going to stare? What would Ollie think of me? Was fundraising and shaving for the cancer stricken kids enough? Whilst queuing to shave, I got emotional. Stood there thinking about the kids who had cancer..how they did not have a choice with getting stricken by cancer. Argh…how come mothers are so emo one huh?? Overall, it was a pretty cool event. I reckon I’ll give it a miss next year and consider about doing it again the year after.
Being pregnant. Right. Well, we were expecting it. (haha so confident hor?) But I think the really bad morning sickness for the first couple of weeks really put a dampner on things. That and me somewhat mentally panicking about handling two kids, or being VERY pregnant and handling a toddler. Need to calm down and just let things flow. Breathe in…breathe out. No more thoughts about this high except that we are looking forward to meeting this fella next March! =)