Happy Birthday, my dearest, sweetest, little Annette. Love, Mummy.
(Magazine cover generated via fd’s Flickr Toys.)
Category Archives: Annette
The Limit
March 13, 2007 – 1:16 pm
Overheard in the Ongs’ household…
“What are you doing, Annette?”
“I’m driving Mummy to the limit.”
“Uh huh. And where is the limit?”
“Over there.”
A B C
December 30, 2006 – 8:02 pm
Annette was gifted this new toy by grandpa and grandma for Christmas. It can sing the ABC song, and it has the letters of the alphabets that you can stick in the “letter reader” and read it for you. I’m not one to usually go for “educational” type of toys like this, as I believe children can learn many things from simple and inexpensive toys — things such as creativity and imagination (things that many adults sadly lack). But I must say that I’m quite impressed with this particular toy. Annette has heard the ABC song before this, but after playing with this toy her alphabet knowledge sure has catapulted. It probably helps that the toy can sing the song thirty times in a row if Annette chooses to, whereas I probably would’ve gone kaput.
Play the video below to hear Annette’s version of the ABC song.
Artist At Work
November 15, 2006 – 11:08 pm
Annette is really into drawing with crayons lately, ever since we visited Jemima, who lives nearby, and saw her crayons. This is her working at the latest creation. That red/orangey thing in the middle is mine, but the rest is her own doing.
I must say I’m loving the way she uses the colours! She’s been trying to mix the different colours to see what happens. It’s a great start, I’d say. I’m not a very creative person myself, but I’m glad Annette is getting creative influences.
She also likes to draw “people”. She’d draw the face, dots for eyes, then mouth, then hair. Then she discovered that Daddy wears glasses, so now she draws all her “people” with big circle glasses for eyes.
And thanks to Playschool, we have a song to sing along to as we draw and make our artworks.
Red, red, red, who is painting red today?
Red, red, red, who is painting red?
Annette’s painting red today,
Just look at her and you will see.
Red, red, red, Annette’s painting red.
Green, green, green, who is painting green today?
Green, green, green, who is painting green?
Mummy’s painting green today,
Just look at her and you will see.
Green, green, green, Mummy’s painting green.
Toilet Training Resumes
October 5, 2006 – 1:44 pm
Well, toilet training got postponed for a while as we were getting ready for our Melbourne trip a couple of weeks ago (another post about the trip is coming, soonish). But now we have started again, now that the weather is warm, the family is healthy, and TAT mums bible study group breaks during the school holidays.
We started again last tuesday, and have been doing it every morning in the past few days. This time, Annette is not afraid of sitting on the toilet anymore. She can even climb up there all by herself. (My baby, she loves climbing things. The cot (even with the bars up), the change table, dining table, etc. My heart missed a beat last Monday, public holiday Monday, when we went to Centennial Park for a picnic, and Annette saw some little boys climbing trees. I thought she would want to go and join them. But thankfully she just kept munching on her Nutrigrains.)
Anyway, like last time we tried toilet training, Annette kept saying that she wants to go to the toilet, urgently, but still nothing happened on the toilet. That is, nothing until today! On one of the gazillion toilet trips, she actually did a wee-wee. On the toilet! Much rejoicing was had, and much praises were lavished on such an achievement. Although Annette herself looked like she didn’t know what was going on. She probably didn’t do it on purpose, and we were probably just happened to be at the right place at the right time, but it was a great opportunity to show her what she’s meant to do on the toilet.
I’m also very surprised to discover that she can stay dry for quite a long time. For some reason, I had this idea that babies and toddlers do “their business” at short intervals throughout the day (after all they have nappies). Well, babies probably do, but apparently toddlers only do it several times a day. Almost like adults do, probably. I discovered while I was watching her constantly, most of the times I took her to the toilet, nothing happened. But now I sort of know an approximate time when “something” might happen, so I can watch her more closely at those times. That also means that I can relax a bit at other times, and can do other things, like laundry or washing up. Or browsing the internet.
A World of Her Own
October 4, 2006 – 4:49 pm
Sometimes I wish I had a camera in Annette’s room, just so that I can see what’s going on in there when she’s not sleeping. Right now, the noises coming out of her room goes something like this:
“Hooraaaay…. Hooraaaaay!”
…humming…
…more humming…
“Excuse me! Excuse me!”
…squealing…
“Jump! Jump!”
“Hooraaaaay… HOORAAAAAAAY…”
Yes, raising a kid is exhausting, but it sure can be entertaining! :)
Toilet Training, Day 1
September 12, 2006 – 12:06 am
Day 1 was last Wednesday. I meant to start on the Monday last week, but then discovered that I really needed to do some housework (fancy that… the house just doesn’t clean itself up!) and on Tuesday discovered that I really needed to do some grocery shopping.
So “proper” toilet training started on Wednesday morning. First I sat her down and explained to her that now we are going to teach her to use the toilet, now that she’s a big girl. Not just the “pretend” sitting on the potty or the toilet, but actually using it when she wants to do a wee-wee or a poo. In the past several months occasionally we have been getting Annette to sit on the potty or the toilet, just to familiarise her with them, but not consistent enough to count as real toilet training. (Well it had been cold, having just gotten past the winter months, and I don’t want to do toilet training while she has a lot of clothes on.) She had never actually done any “business” there though. But as a friend says, if you keep getting her to sit, something is bound to happen. But nothing so far.
Anyway, the day went something like this.
- I stayed with Annette the whole time, asking her every five minutes whether she wants to do a wee-wee or a poo. She kept saying no.
- A couple times I got her to go to the toilet anyway. At first she didn’t want to sit there, but changed her mind when I mentioned “crunchy noodles”. So she sat there, but nothing happened. Back to the living room.
- While playing playdough, suddenly Annette exclaimed with much alarm, “Mummy! Wet! WET!!!” And sure enough, wee-wee was dripping from her pants. Oh dear! Mad rush to the toilet. The dripping stopped as soon as we got to the toilet, of course. Ok, no big deal. Quickly changed pants, pour some water and soap on wet carpet, and blot blot blot with kitchen towel. Lather, rinse, repeat.
- During lunch, Annette informed me urgently, “Wee-wee! Wee-wee!” Mad rush again to the toilet. Nothing happened though. This happened two or three times. It occurred to me that perhaps she’s enjoying this toilet drills just a little bit too much.
- Nap time. I put her back in a nappy so that we don’t have to worry about accidents during naptime.
And I let her stay in nappies for the remainder of the day because I was already exhausted. Gee, and that was just one morning. Surely it’s easier to just let her stay in nappies??
Now to wait for more warm sunny days for more toilet training…