the influence of the evil goggle box? aka the arrival of a new superhero

this morning, as i sat down groggily to my crosswords, the bean rummaged in her swim bag and produced a pair of goggles.

"my goggles!", she said triumphantly, holding them to let me see, as if she doesn't know that they'd be in the bag.

i turned back to the paper, only to hear shortly, "look mummy! super kitten!"

the bean had put on her goggles and stood in front of me, grinning, "i am super kitten! i am going to save you mummy!"

i told her that super kitten needed a cape too, and tucked two corners of her favourite chiffon green scarf into the back of her t-shirt collar.

she then made me get in between some large cushions, pretending that they were boulders or some such, "mummy, hold onto my cape. i will rescue you. i will pull you out."

she gave me a small corner of her cape to hang onto and together we pretended that she hauled my ass out of my tight spot.

when i said, "thank you super kitten for saving me," she was so pleased, she made me repeat the exercise.

later when i related this incident to dh, he laughed and then reprimanded me, "i can't believe you didn't take a picture!" dh wondered where she got the idea for the superhero.

then dh told me that before bathtime, when the bean was watching telly, he had tried to get her to finish only to be told ever so politely, "no thank you. i am watching cbeebies," intoned while her eyes were glued to the goggle box.

paranoid bean?

the bean's phrase du jour is "are you talking about me?"

when dh and i are conversing, if she thinks we're discussing somebody, she'd inevitably pop out that question. most of the time, she is correct in assuming that we were indeed talking about her. but once in a while, we confound her by saying "no".

bean's stubborn streak & her dream - our bedtime blues

i was just telling her paternal grandparents (ye ye & nai nai) that dh has not been impressed by the bean's behaviour the past few days, during which she maintained mexican stand-offs with her dad.

the most recent one occurred on wednesday evening. but let me give some background first.

the bean was given an advent calendar that had pockets for each date which i filled with chocs (foil wrapped choc santas, choc balls) and trinkets (colourful hair-ties/clips). the bean loves this calendar as soon as she found that she could dip her fingers inside each pocket and retrieve a foil-wrapped "tweat".

and because she's got chicken pox, we've been bribing her not to scratch her poxes with chocolate too. so she's become a huge chocolate fiend.

well, dh came home early wednesday and helped the bean get to the no. 3 pocket where she found a choc ball. after that dh told her that it was bath time and she should get ready for it. this is when she 'bit the hand that fed her' - she became petulant, "no! it's not bath time. no, i don't want to have a bath." she continued by saying that she wanted another chocolate ball.

dh then lectured her, telling her that chocolate is only for the late afternoons and she can't have more than one as it turns her into a little monster...or words to that effect.

anyhow, the bean didn't like that lecture one bit and started a one-note protest, "no!"

when dh tried to coax/reason/drag her into the bathroom, she stood outside and just kept uttering, "no!"

she wouldn't let me undress her and when we, finally, somehow, managed to get her to do it by herself, she just stood in the bathtub in her shin-deep specially-medicated bathwater and wailed, "no! no! no!"

i passed her her toothbrush and she just clutched it tightly, not letting go, but not brushing her teeth either, "no!"

when we took her out of the bathtub, which was accompanied by even louder protests, and brought her into her room, she still clutched her toothbrush.

she wouldn't let me put her into her jammies, and just faced dh, yelling, "no!", waving a hand in his face as if to ward him off or to wave him away.

dh turned to me and said, "i won't be defeated by a 3 year old."

eventually i had her bundled in bed and she fell asleep sobbing.

if her 2-3 year old tantrums are any indication, her teenage tantrums will be quite spectacular!

****************

she woke up late thursday night wailing and dh had to eventually put her into our bed while he slept in hers.

when dh asked her in the morning what upset her, she said, "a dream. the little kittens lost their mittens."

dancing bean

our little dancing queen's favourite move is a twirl/spin.

she just likes to spin round and round in one direction till she stumbles. then sometimes she'd spin in the other direction but most often than not she'd just carry on.

at the end of her performance, when the song ends, she'd bow deeply, with one arm across her abdomen, the other behind her back.

at our mandarin playgroup, while the other children dances along with the jie jie and does the right moves, the bean does her own thing and ignores everybody else.

lack of self-consciousness

unlike maybe 6 months ago, the bean has now become something of an attention-addict.

near the end of the singing session at the under 3s programme last week, the directress announced that we would be singing happy birthday to 3 kids.

before she could continue, the bean cut in by crying out, "me! me! sing for me! my birthday too?!", as she bounded up to the teacher.

the directress had to tell her that it's not her birthday yet, so we couldn't sing about it, to which the bean announced, "my birthday in januwary!"

i had to take the bean aside and quietly persuade her that singing happy birthday to the birthday kids would be fun too. thankfully she didn't make a fuss and actually sang along.

the bean's certainly no longer shy about going up in front of a group.

at our mandarin playgroup, one of the programme segments involves the children taking turns going behind a puppet stage, peering out and waving at the others as everyone shouts, "ni hao!"

the bean absolutely LOVES this part and would run back to do it over and over if i didn't prevent her. i discourage the extra times as it deprives other children from their turns.

in fact, at our most recent attendance, one parent actually commented to me, "another star performance," after the bean had gone twice, waved enthusiastically and said, "ni hao!" back to the group.

the bean's altruism & self-portrait #2

dh came home at lunchtime today and as he accompanied the bean at the dining table, she said to him, "daddy, i don't like my chicken pox. (slight pause) can i give it away?"

they continued this conversation in the car later - "who do you want to give it away to?", asked dh.
to which the bean replied, "you".

hmmm...she just might get her wish and one or both her parents could be infected right now.

(btw, dh added that as she was walking to the car she told him that she wanted to leave her chicken pox at home.)

anyhow, this is her latest self-portrait..."it's leah with chicken pox", she announced almost triumphantly to me just now.

i'll describe the portrait a bit - the dot within a circle at the top of the figure's 'head' represents the pox on the bean's forehead (she has just a little pox there); the mad-looking scribbling at the bottom of the figure is the bean's clothing; the two little lines sticking out from the bottom of the 'head' are the bean's legs; 2 circles each side of the wide mouth represent 'rosy cheeks' or they might be ears; figure is missing arms.

note on the picture titles: the numbering of the bean's pictures is just for the blog's reference, and does not correspond to any real-life output.

bean poxed

sigh...

the bean has chicken pox. it's not full-blown because she's had her vaccinations, but the doc certainly thinks that it is very likely the pox. which is a shame as it means that the bean might be missing her last couple of weeks of "toddler school" (our under 3s programme), as well as her mandarin classes.

the spots first appeared on sunday but they were just a few scattered ones around her abdomen and her back, which i thought were mozzie bites. then when i bathed her yesterday i was concerned that spots had appeared in a cluster around her shoulders. and the itchiness would explain why her sleep has been fitful the past 2 nights.

yet during the day, the bean isn't particularly poorly. she's still got her appetite (she's just announced, "mum! i'm hungry! i'm hungry!" as i type this), although that could change if the pox gets worse, and she's been pretty chirpy and active.

still, the prospect of being stuck at home for the next week or so is a bit bleak...i hope my resources for entertaining her won't be exhausted too soon!

bean's candid observations

took the bean swimming yesterday. while i was helping the bean to dress in the changing room, the bean, as usual, was being a busybody looking at other people. in particular, she noticed a woman in a corner and asked, "what that woman doing mum?"

sotto voce, i said, "what do you think? and don't point."

bean replied, "she's changing," and added, "she has a big round bottom."

that just gave me a tiny pause, but i said, "so do you."

bean's "big" words & "name of today"

a couple of days ago, a mum at playgroup told me that the bean knows some big words as she had used the word "decorate" whilst playing at the sandpit.

it set me to wonder at what big words the bean does know. so here're some words and terms she's recently uttered.

- troublesome: as in "troublesome trucks" from thomas & friends

- irritating: as in when i get cross and tell her that she's being irritating and she argues back and says she is not "idditating"

- annoying: ditto above

- difficult: as in "this is too difficult for me"

- suspension: as in 'suspension bridge', although it's pronounced "pension bwidge"

- configuration: as in "i don't like this train set configuwation"

*****************

arguably one of her favourite lines at the mo' is "what is the name of today?"

this is often the first thing she asks in the morning and even though she'd been told what it is, she might ask it again later on, especially when we're in the car.

this morning (sunday, 23 nov), that was the first thing she said upon waking. then she repeated my reply, "sunday. (pause) where we going today?"

me: "maybe we'll do some grocery shopping."

bean: "no. not grocery shopping."

me: "yes, we've run out of some stuff and we need vegetables, fish, tofu..."

bean: "not milk. we don't buy milk." (this is because i keep force-feeding her milk in the mornings and evenings)

me: "milk is good for you. makes you grow big and strong."

bean countered with: "i bigger girl now," as if hoping that would convince me she doesn't need any more fresh cow's milk.

magickazoona

i put the bean in a red polkadot dress today and with it she took on a slightly different persona. she told me that she is now a fairy and started waving her extra-large bubble wand as a fairy wand. "i not a tiger any more."

she then insisted on wearing her fairy wings (the "pinky fairy wings") that i had bought from cotton on kids.

thus togged out, she then waved her wand at me and said, "i am going to magic you," and enchanted, "magickazoona!"

the things she says

a few bean-isms today...

while in the middle of her tea, she solemnly, emphatically declared, "mum! horses can't fly." (of course, it came out as "horses can't fwy", the last word i misheard as "cry".) on her 3rd attempt to tell me this very important fact, she was almost fiercely adamant.

then in the bath just a minute ago, she said, "when i was a little boy, i had a pee pee."

afterwards, she sang a song (i can't remember which one!) and commented at the end, "that is a cheerful song." i asked if she liked it, and she replied, "it's a good song."

family portraits # 1

today the bean decided to use some new marker pens to do a picture of her cousin matteo. he's the one in maroon attached to a green rock - don't ask me what a rock is doing in the mise-en-scene. (sorry, i've been told that it is NOT a rock, it is a golf ball...apparently matteo is hitting it. silly mummy...)

standing beside matteo are his grandparents, the bean's po po and gong gong, looking suitably taller, albeit a trifle gaunt and limbless.

i have to add that these portraits were not commissioned by me. it was the bean's own spontaneous decision to do them.

sep-nov update: cognition & speech

backseat driver (advanced)
earlier in the week of 3 nov, while we were on the road one morning, we became stuck behind a bus in a bus bay. i didn't know whether the bus was going to move off soon or to overtake it, so in the moments of deliberation i muttered, "stupid bus! are you going to move?"

only to hear from my backseat driver, "mummy, don't be rude to the bus. it is not rude to you. it is stopped because of the red light. so don't be angry at the bus, ok?"

i was kind of pleased that she's able to reason it so logically, but also a little miffed as it is a bit rich, coming from a kid who would sing, "the monkey on the road wouldn't drive properly, drive properly, drive properly" to the tune of 'the wheels on the bus'. ok, so daddy taught her this rather rude song, but still...chagrin...

one of the activities we do to deflect her from potential tantrums, is to ask her to spot street signs. "can you see any roundabout signs? or give way signs?" or we count bottlebrush trees* or look for palm/pine/gum trees. or we look for trucks/diggers/concrete mixers. sometimes, when i remember, i would get her to call them out in mandarin...but this isn't as often as it should be.

jiang hua yu
i have enrolled the bean in both a mandarin playgroup and a zhuyin fuhao class - they're run by 2 different organisations. the latter class is to (hopefully) ground her in chinese phonics and to familiarise her with traditional characters.

she still resists going to both sessions, yet once there she doesn't want to leave! but i guess our efforts are paying dividends...some.

at home, she does sing some of the mandarin children's songs that they use in the playgroup, even though she would just rather spin round and round (that's her signature dance, and she usually ends her twirling with a little bow) than sing along with the jie jie and other kids in class.

we have a simple bopomofo** table at home and she likes to point at the characters and spout its pronounciation.

it's rare, but she does use mandarin phrases or words. like, "bu yao" (don't want) and "bu zhi dao" (don't know).

20 questions - the why phase
folks have written or whined about the onset of the age of "whys", and i had always thought it cute but exaggerated. well, now that the bean's started, those parents have my utmost sympathies.

she doesn't use "why" yet, but the phrase "what's the meaning" and variations there of: "what's the meaning of saturday, mum?", "what's the meaning of parrot?", "what's olives mean?", "what's eggplant mean?" ad nausem...

off pronounciation
at this age the bean obviously still can't get her tongue around some consonant blends, most notably "sp" ("pooky poon" is spooky spoon, a villianous character from the tv show numberjacks) and "st" ("we topping now").

anything!
when the bean is asked if she would like something and she's not interested, she now says, "anything!". after a while we worked it out that 'anything' actually means 'nothing'. but we didn't 'get it' until we've had much tears over crossed messages.

e.g., i might ask, "would you like to wear this outfit or this one?" the bean would look at them and then turn away, "anything! anything!" and then when i pick one outfit for her and try to get her to wear it, she'd protest, "no! no! anything!" only after a couple of these exchanges did i realise that she meant she didn't like any of the outfits.


* bottlebrush tree: shrubs and trees belonging to the genus Callistemon. we have one which i think is a weeping bottlebrush in our backyard. it is very popular with rainbow lorikeets and indian mynahs. around our neighbourhood, this is a popular roadside shrub, but i have no idea which specific ones they are. for more info - http://www.anbg.gov.au/callistemon/index.html

** zhuyinfuhao is aka bopomofo colloquially.

sep-nov update - socialisation

i have been remiss in updating the blog. what i will try is to group my anecdotes into broad categories - socialisation (covering her interactions with her cousins and other kids), speech & cognition, and random stuff - stuff that don't fit into the above 2 categories.

i had hoped that the bean's trip to the uk, where she would be interacting properly with her older twin cousins for the first time, would inspire her in some ways. well, she did enjoy being near them, although she could take herself off to play by herself (she was totally enamoured by their train set).

"hi guys! i here now!" was a refrain she'd cry before running to see them. but at her age, being a year younger and still really a toddler, she was really playing in parallel with them.

one funny moment came when the 3 kids were playing with a sandpit in the garage. the twins as usual would be talking-bickering between themselves, commenting on their own and each other's work. the bean was in a different corner working on her own thing, then while still concentrating on her work, she announced, "you guys. you are so naughty." (i am not sure what incidents inspired this observation of hers though.)

christopher wasn't particularly perturbed by her comment as he was engrossed in his own plans for the sandpit (involving moving very heavy bits around the garage) but edward was indignant, "we are not!"

another time, the bean was engrossed with crayoning at the easel when she was kissed on the cheek by christopher. she put one hand to the spot, turned and said to him, "thank you." she then turned around and saw me and explained, "kwiffer did kiss me." the boy in question was a little abashed and ran off...exactly like how i imagined georgy-porgy to react after kissing the girls.

but for his affection, christopher was pipped by edward in looking after the bean. when the 3 of them were packed off to a playbarn, edward was the one who kept saying, "christopher, wait! we have to wait" for the bean.

the bean was obviously attached to the elder boys, but unfortunately, because the younger twins are still too young to 'play' with her, she wasn't as interested in them...the younger cousins are still very new toddlers and at the curious stage where they want to grab everything and do not know their own strength. this they displayed to the fullest whenever the bean was near them - they'd reach out and tug at her hair or give her a whack hello. so after a few experiences the bean tried to avoid them as much as possible.

one morning it culminated as we stepped out of the bathroom and encountered the twins' mother, and the bean solemnly declared, "aunty mimi, i don't like florian and samuel."

talk about kids not having any filter for their thoughts. i was speechless at her frankness/rudeness and mortified. thankfully, aunty mimi was a lot more understanding than i!

i am sure though that when the kids are a bit older all the cousins would be able to play together.

back in oz, while the bean likes being around other kids of the same age or slightly older, she still doesn't know how to share or take turns.

everything is "mine", even public stuff or stuff in school. when i told her that she would have to share her toys with visitors to our house, she thought on it then informed me, "mummy, i don't want anybody to come visit me."

and her wants must be satisfied immediately. i have to constantly remind her about this in the desperate hope that she will learn delayed gratification.

bean's self-portrait # 1

this is the bean's first self-portrait (she'd done a couple of portraits of me before), done yesterday afternoon, thurs 6 nov. it's some evidence of her artistic progress. she began as all kids do, by being content merely daubing on colour and then she moved to what-seemed-like random scribbles and doodles, and thence latterly to 'panda bears', her first 'representational' drawing subject.

after pandas, she did one octopus (with exactly 8 legs, counting as she drew them) and then a few whales and one cat. surprisingly, even though she absolutely adores cats (probably her favourite animal "all day long"*) she hasn't been particularly interested in drawing them.

she really started drawing 'properly' after we came back from the uk early october, when she went into a frenzy of artistic 'expression' - in fact, for a long time, her one drawing subject was the panda bear - a shapeless blob with stick legs, arms and ears, eyes (one big, one small) and gash-like mouth. her montessori directress suggested that i stock the house with lots of paper for her to doodle as this burst of drawing is usually a precursor to actual writing.

our living room is now adorned with a few of her drawings - i've pegged them onto the fishing wire that the previous tenants had left strung on the walls.

* "all day long" is bean-speak for 'all the time'/ 'always'/ 'everytime'/ 'forever'...

making the acquaintance of a feline neighbour

we've now been resettled for almost 2 months in the new neighbourhood. however, we've been away for half of the time, so we still have lots of rearranging to do in the home - books and toys and other paraphernalia all in the wrong places.

anyhoo, we'd left behind 2 friendly feline neighbours and i'd wondered whether we would make some new ones here. well, today, my wonderment ceased. around lunchtime i espied a trespasser slowly prowling her way across our garden along the back fence. presumably stalking a feathered quarry or 2.

i opened the kitchen door and called to it...uh...it means that i made loud "miaowing" sounds. it certainly caught the culprit's attention and after some time assessing me, she decided to come forward to investigate.

the bean was alerted to the cat's presence by my unsubtle meows and immediately rushed to the garden without bothering to put on shoes.

she and new feline friend spent some time getting to know each other...or rather the cat was its usual disinterested self while the bean kept tailing it, saying, "hello."

when the cat became bored of this it lounged under our clothes drying rack where there was some shade from the sun. and when it tired even of lounging it wandered indoors to snoop around our house. typical cat behaviour.

by this time the bean had been summoned back to her lunch and she was less obsessed by it.

nursing a bumble bee

the bean and i have been under the weather for the past few days. i don't know how the bean got sick in the first place but her nose started dripping badly on friday. so it was that all day long she kept asking, "i need a cloth mama! i need a cloth!" (to wipe her nose). i caught my cold from the bean, naturally, and wonder when it will be dh's turn to fall ill.

anyhow, despite her cold, she's been remarkably chirpy and this morning she played happily outside on her ride-on toys. then suddenly we (dh was still at home, prior to heading out to work) heard her call out loudly, "i found a bumble bee! i found a bumble bee! it's got wings!"

turns out it was indeed a bee, but it was very obviously dead, lying motionless on the brick-tiled yard. i told her so, but she doesn't yet understand what 'death' means and continued to talk to the bee as if it could understand her. i returned to the kitchen and from the window i could see her reaching out to the bee chatting to it. then, inspired, she cried, "i going to feed it!"

she toddled up to the garden and plucked a few strands of grass and presented them to the bee. perhaps a breeze made the tiny blades disappear because i next heard the bean call out, "the bumble bee ate the grass! it ate all the grass!"

this inspired her to get more, "bumble bee, i get you some more. then you will feel more better."

when the bee didn't ingest the latest grassy offering, the bean talked to it awhile before losing interest. soon after she got onto her trike and called to me, "mummy cat! can you help me?" when i went to her thinking that she needed help with the seat belt buckle, she knew her ruse worked, "mummy cat, can you push me?" i decided to humour her a bit and pushed her around the yard for a bit before making my excuses and got back to my chores.

much later, after finishing breakfast, she announced, "i found a dead bumble bee."

the fussy eater

i'm listing the bean's peculiar dietary preferences just so's i can compare with what she will or won't eat when she's older. by the way, i am hoping she will grow out of her pet food hates and become a more catholic eater.

meats/fish
1. salmon - she'll eat it ovenbaked or grilled, not dressed unless with a light sprinkling of salt. (unlike some kids, the bean doesn't like any sauce on her food.)

2. ocean trout - again, ovenbaked or grilled as is.

3. birdseye frozen fish fillets with spinach & feta - i've tried her on normal kids' fish fingers and she is not terribly fond of those, nor would she gobble down other 'flavoured' frozen fillets as much as she does this particular version with spinach and feta.

4. beef - she likes the japanese-style very thinly/finely sliced beef. i think she likes beef only when it's tender and not chewy.

5. chicken - normally she hates whatever chicken i cook her but yesterday i tried her on small pieces of teriyaki chicken and she liked those.

vegetables
1. broccoli - she'll eat a few and then needs lots of coaxing to finish the rest. plus, she's partial to the stems. she doesn't like the florets part of the veg.

2. celery - she likes this raw, without the leafy bits.

3. spinach (or any other leafy veg) - will eat only when i spoon-feed her.

4. kailan - she used to eat a lot of this (simply stir-fried, not too oily, and must be tender) but we haven't been giving her much of it lately

fruit
watermelon is arguably her favourite fruit, tied with blueberries and mangoes. she will eat the usual apples/pears/mandarin oranges/grapes et al but they won't be greeted with the same enthusiasm.

she told me today, "i don't like it" looking at the bowl of rockmelon i had placed on her table, but when i asked her to try just one she managed to scoff down most of it.

as a baby she used to retch when i tried to give her bananas. but after she turned 2 she began to like them more. she still won't finish an entire banana but now she will pick one up and peel it herself - when she is in the mood.

rice/pasta/bread
she likes boiled rice (she used to like fried rice but she doesn't like egg, in whatever form) and she prefers plain brown bread to any fancier gourmet variety that i am partial to ("without the seeds mama"). she will eat ravioli if it's just stuffed with spinach and cheese. i tried her on beef ravioli and that was a dismal failure.

miscellaneous
1. macaroni cheese - the easy-cook pasta packs are her favourite. she doesn't like it when i melt cheese into cooked macaroni - i think it's the lumps and gooey cheese that turns her off.

2. spaghetti bolognese - this is on every children's menu in restaurants, but the bean hates it

3. sushi - to be precise, it's "cucumber hosomaki", i.e. the plain nori-wrapped cucumber rolls that have been sliced into bite-sized pieces. she doesn't like it when i change the filling to chopped carrots/tinned tuna etc.

4. spinach/ sausage rolls - yup, those rather unhealthy pastry shop snacks. she usually gets a sausage roll and a cup of hot chocolate after her swim lesson. and when we used to do kindermusik, we used to pacify her with a roll and a babycino after class too.

5. french fries - the chips in fish and chips used to be a bean favourite. but lately she is not as into them as before...or maybe it's just that she prefers sushi now?


food hates/loves
egg could top her list of food she dislikes. she doesn't like egg in any form - boiled, fried et al - which is a bit inconvenient as a boiled egg is such a wholesome all-in-one food. several months ago she used to be given one at least once a week, and although she'd only eat the egg white portion she would at least go them a go. not so now.

an inherited trait, her very favourite 'food' is ice cream. i even tried her on green tea ice cream yesterday and she loved it.

it's a sign that childhood is no longer what we remember it to be when kids cry out for a babycino. and er...the bean is no different from any other middle-class aussie brat with a penchant for the foamy milk concoction laced with cocoa, having announced 2 days ago as i drove her to playgroup, "we are going to a cafe. i want a babycino mama."

food for thought? it's truly bemusing business feeding the bean.

i'm going on holiday

after i got out of the shower this morning i came into the living room calling for the bean. only to have her answer from the backdoor in the kitchen, all togged out already - sunnies on her face, slingbag on her arm, favourite necklace and bracelet and shoes on, "i am going on holiday! i can't be late. can you help me?"

i burst into laughter and asked what sort of help she needed. she didn't elaborate but reiterated, "can you help me go to the* holiday?"

*hopefully, the bean's grammar will improve, along with her grasp of abstract concepts such as 'holiday' and 'months'. she still thinks that her nainai and yeye live "in the month of august", because we had been saying that we'll be visiting them in the month of august.

well, i didn't bring her on her holiday (just yet) but we ended up in a sushi restaurant for lunch, where i very nearly fed my daughter wasabi instead of green tea ice cream. how was i to know that the large, attractive, round ball of green sitting in a pretty bowl with a small plastic ice cream spoon wasn't ice cream???

luckily for us a hawkeyed waitress came up and asked, "does she really like wasabi?"

me, "isn't it green tea ice cream?"

waitress, "oh no no!" and hurriedly whisked the fat bowl of wasabi away before the bean was about to scoop a mouthful.

she returned with a small tub of the proper stuff from the fridge. and the bean was mollified (she was most anxious about the faux ice cream's disappearance thinking that mummy was about to gipp her yet again), so much so that she refused to share the ice cream with me. even when i blackmailed her by saying that she was being as mean as diesel**.

**diesel is, as his name implies, a diesel engine from the thomas & friends pantheon. he's one of the few engines that the bean always insists, "i don't l i k e him. he is n a s t y." she tends to drawl out certain words in emphasis.

the magic word

i forgot to post this when "normal service" resumed - the event took place the day we got the keys to the new house and we launched our move, so it's a few weeks' old.

it was a saturday and dh had taken it on himself to cater to the bean's breakfast needs. she was given some cereal (or maybe it was toast with honey - that's her favourite brekkie) and then she asked, "i want some apple juice, dad." almost like an afterthought she added, "in a teacup. i want some apple juice in a teacup."

dh is quite particular about Ps and Qs and he prompted her with, "and what's the magic word?"

the bean replied loudly and slowly, "teeeaa cuuup."

this temporarily floored dh as he was expecting her to say "pweese".

i guess we should be somewhat thankful that she's still wee and doesn't yet know how to truly talk back. when we related this incident to a married friend, he said that when he asks his wife what's the magic word, she inevitably growls, "now!"

while the bean still has yet to have courtesy ingrained so that it's second nature, she can trot out 'please' when it suits her, as the episode with the sydney airport immigration officer showed.

(inherited?) scatalogical humour

i'd found a new thomas & friends audiobook in an auckland children's books and toys shop and when we returned to sydney the first chance i got i played it on the car stereo. most of the stories should be familiar to the bean as the little thomas storybooks she has at home replicate them. however, the cd stories expand on the paperback versions and anyway, the bean is captivated by anything thomas related.

during a recent drive home the bean listened to one of the stories - about thomas and terence, a tractor with caterpillar treads. after thomas made fun of terence's caterpillar wheels and scoffed at the effect of snow to deter trains, saying, "pooh!", the bean burst into a peal of delighted giggles. at the next instance when thomas disparaged snow ("soft stuff!") and made another "pooh" interjection, the bean had another fit of giggles.

i was amazed and gratified. i hadn't heard this giggle for a while (it is one of the best sounds from the bean - most infectious and cute) and i wanted to know what about the story made her laugh so happily. that night i asked the bean what made her giggle, giving her a few prompts to remind her which story it was. and her smiling reply was, "thomas said 'poo'."

i related the episode to dh, and he wondered if she thinks "poo" is a naughty word. i don't know as i couldn't get the bean to give me a better reason.

finding beauty in little things

yesterday the bean found an evil eye amulet* hanging from the doorknob in the kitchen. she looked at it and exclaimed in awed tones, "what is this? it is so beautiful! it is precious!"

you'd have thought that the bean had stumbled on the most stunning sunsets or most precious of jewels, not a small gypsy souvenir.

* a traditional turkish (istanbul-style) amulet to ward off evil looks from jealous or ill-wishing people that was a present from one of dh's brothers.

charm offence on an immigration official

we had a comparatively good flight from auckland to sydney earlier this week. the bean had a short nap on the plane; she ate a tub of chocolate ice cream; and she had watched a little thomas & friends on her portable dvd player, so i guess she was in a good mood when we landed at sydney international.

after a bit of a wait we finally got to an immigration counter and when i picked the bean up so that the official (a woman) could take a look at her, the officer greeted the bean with "hello gorgeous". this probably set the tone as the bean smirked back and when i placed the bean on the ledge at the front of the counter, she leaned over the counter and engaged the immigration officer in a huge charm offensive. dh and i were virtually ignored as the immigration officer talked to the bean. so our ordeal was a little longer than usual at the immigration counter but it was a great deal pleasanter.

a snatch of the banter between the woman officer and the bean:
"and who is this?", the officer pointed to my passport photo.
"mummy."
"do you love your mummy? is she a good mummy?"
the bean straightened up, leaned over to me, wrapped her arms round my neck, and smiling coyly said, "yes."
"what's this? a stamp. i am stamping all your passports."
"can i have one too? pweese?"
"awww. she said 'please'!", this was to the officer's neighbour in the next counter.
"sure you can. just wait till i'm done."
the bean then said, "this hand too! pweese?"

i couldn't see the bean's facial expressions as she had her back to me but dh said that from what little he could observe the bean did a couple of her special beams (where she scrunches up her face in a funny smile) and smirks to the officer. truth be told, when she wants to she does simper quite well. dh is convinced that the bean's charm and social skills comes from him. (roll eyes)

moving house (again) & montessori update

i am typing this up from our 3rd residence in oz amidst a chaotic house still full of boxes/binliner bags of clothes etc, having just shifted. last month our old landlord decided that s/he will be upping the rent and we found that we had to find a new house and move in just a week short from an overseas trip that could not be postponed. all rather inconvenient but we have found a cheaper place and the saved money will go to the bean's preschool fees instead!

with the move and the trip, the bean's sense of order has been inevitably affected. so she was "all over the place" on the first week of term 3 at her montessori playgroup. however, she did demonstrate that she has advanced in her motor/spatial skills and she performed some of the practical life exercises admirably this week (wk 2).

e.g. she was shown how to undo the buttons of the big button dressing frame only once last term (and then she had not been much interested, to tell the truth) so i thought she would've forgotten how to do it and needed a new demo from the directress. but this time she just took over and unbuttoned and buttoned up the frame very efficiently. when the directress found that she had completed this one, she showed the bean how to do the buckles dressing frame. after seeing how it was all done, the bean also managed to do this exercise rather quickly. once completed, she then went to the dressing frames basket and proceeded to work through the rest of the dressing frames till she completed them all. thereafter she announced in rather self-satisfied manner, "i did all of them!"

bean the fashionista

i don't know where the bean gets her girlie fashion sense from - it ain't from me (although i'll admit to guilty tv pleasures like 'project runway') as anyone who knows me will testify (my own style is pretty much in the preppy-practical-jeans-&-tees category).

she is soooo into her "ballerina dress" i.e. any full-skirted dress that balloons out when she twirls and spins in it. and this must be worn with tights. she usually picks out her own outfits and she tries to match them colour-wise but the overall effect is still somewhat psychedelic.

today, she decided on blue and purple striped tights. then she said she wanted a blue ballerina dress to go with the blue in the tights. i offered 2 dresses and she picked a dark blue-almost purple dress, crying out delightedly, "this one! it's quite perfect!"

the nascent imelda bean
unfortunately (or fortunately) she doesn't have many fashionable shoes. she is very partial to a pair of white sandals with pink flowers and she usually insists on them especially if she's wearing a dress.

last weekend when we went to queensland, i only packed a pair of light green crocs for her. big mistake.

she was happy with the crocs for a (short) while as it has a nemo button attached but then she got bored with them and wanted to wear my shoes (i had taken a pair of silver ballet flats with me) instead.

then at the children's playground in the resort's grounds, she came upon a "little girl" (it doesn't matter if the girl is heaps bigger than her, it's still "little girl" to the bean) who was wearing a pair of keds-style flats - red with white polka dots and white toes. the bean immediately zoomed in on the girl and reverently said, "i like your shoes", while reaching out her hands to caress them.

thank goodness she doesn't have a thing for handbags yet.

who is a homo? (warning: non-p.c. post)

story #1: sweets r thicker than blood
we have just come home from a very short weekend away in the gold coast, queensland, with a couple of friends. the bean is very fond of this couple and "uncle jon" is always entertaining, although not always with age-appropriate speech and/or games.

on this trip uncle jon decided to tease dh by trying to get the bean to either say: "daddy is a homo" or "humpty daddy" (after humpty-dumpty). for 2 days the bean resisted jon's attempts at brainwashing, adamantly insisting, "noooooo. daddy not homo. it's not humpty daddy. it's humpty dumpty."

then over lunch on saturday, after she'd been egged about this for a while, the bean declared almost exasperatedly, "uncle jon is a homo!", making the entire table roar with laughter as we took in jon's redfaced chagrin.

to his credit, jon took this in his stride, although a bit later he did muse, "hmmm. how did i become the homo?" to which the half-dozen replies were in the vein of "you reap what you sow."

probably encouraged by the delighted response of everybody at the table (there were about 8 of us) the bean kept to her declaration and didn't waver...that is, till jon finally found a way to overcome this.

sunday. today. we were heading home. at an outdoor cafe of the gold coast airport. the bean had still been sure uncle jon was the homo. then jon took out a packet of jelly babies.

jon to the bean: would you like one?
bean immediately reached out her grubby fingers.
jon: who is the homo?
bean pointed to his wife. jon shook his head. the bean immediately pointed to dh.
jon: yeeeessss! well done! daddy is a homo! (and gave her the sweet)
bean: thank you uncle jon.
jon: you want another one?
bean stretched out her grubby hand again.
jon: what do you say?
bean: daddy is a homo!
dh: how easily loyalty is bought by sweets.
jon, in glee: sweets are thicker than blood obviously.

story #2: turn it off
when we were in the taxi going home from the airport, the bean entertained herself with a couple of her favourite nursery rhymes - 'ding dong bell' & 'sweetly sings the donkey' - tunelessly sung and lisped in places too (e.g. "sing" becomes "hing").

but as she became more engrossed by her own performance, the decibels started increasing. finally, both dh and i turned to the bean and softly went, "shhhh."

to which the bean quickly added, "too noisy. turn it off."

story #3: i told you
i cooked rice with carrots and ham for her dinner tonight and placed the dish on her little table as per usual. when the bean was finally persuaded to eat her dinner before watching "telly", she said, "i going to bring this to the big table."

i didn't really hear what she had said and only reacted when dh asked her, "honey, what are you doing?" - he'd noticed her carrying her bowl and was naturally a bit concerned.

our queries and admonishment made the bean indignant, and she said, "i bringing it to the big table! i told you!"

pop concerts for preschoolers

because it's the winter school holidays i had lined up a couple of concerts to bring the bean to: a playschool concert and a concert by justine clarke - pop star to the under 5s.

the playschool concert was hosted by 2 not so current presenters - alex and angela - although the bean should be familiar with angela from a couple of playschool dvds we own. it wasn't too bad - nursery rhymes and some skits were rehashed from old episodes and most of the children were well entertained. i say most, because the bean spent a large chunk of the concert being miserably snuggled against me. i don't know why she wasn't enthused. perhaps the auditorium was too big and airy; maybe cuz we were at the back and she couldn't see much of the stage; maybe she didn't like the crowds of kids and parents. who knows.

despite her seeming lack of enthusiasm for the concert itself, she did perk up at the merchandise counter. when i offered her a choice of jemima or humpty finger puppets, she picked humpty. angela and alex also signed a colouring book i'd bought the bean. i don't think she is as impressed now as she will be (i hope) when she is (much) older.

justine clarke in concert was a much more positive experience for the bean. as soon as the first chords of "i like to sing" were played the bean began spinning round and round* (almost non-stop), pausing only between songs. it's also a testament to her enjoyment of the concert that she was courageous enough to move away from me in order to get closer to the stage.

i did wonder if the bean would yell at justine "no, no, not that one" if she were to sing a not-so-favourite song (the bean's partial to 'the gumtree family' instead), but she was happy to just spin and twirl till she got dizzy.

unfortunately, when the show ended, justine didn't hang around to sign autographs although i did buy a concert souvenir - a t-shirt, which the bean later stained with orange juice.

back home, the bean was still pretty psyched about the show and insisted on watching justine's dvd. the ironic thing is that when it came to a song she didn't like on the video she did yell at the tv screen, "no! not that one! the other one! the other one!" - hmmm...where was her voice when she had the real justine in front of her eh?

* spinning till she stumbles from dizziness is the bean's idea of dancing

yes, sir & plops

for the past couple of days the bean has been responding to my demands or queries just like how a tank engine would to sir topham hatt (aka the fat controller from thomas & friends).

a few samples...

me: would you like some blueberries?
bean: yes suh!

me: do you want to poo on the big potty?
bean: yes suh! i try.

me: do you want some sushi?
bean: yes suh!

and yes, the bean has begun opting to do her #2s in the big potty now (it was her 2nd time this afternoon), so we are definitely 'seeing the light' at the end of our toilet training 'tunnel'. (if one is allowed such convoluted but strangely apt metaphors.)

and uh...she likes the sound the poo makes as it drops into the bowl - "plop!" "three plops, mama!"

i'm a little kitten

yeeeees (roll eyes), the bean does indeed think she is a little kitten. i have countered if she is instead a tiger cub or a teddy bear, but she unfailingly asserts her right to be "a little kitten".

i do find it amusing at times when she refers to herself in the third person/cat, as in "the little kitten still crying", "the little kitten is upset", "the little kitten is not feeling well"...etc. a couple of times she's also told me that, "i have pink whiskers!"

when dh or i asks how is the little kitten she invariably (if she is happy, playful) goes, "mee-ow!" and looks up smugly, just like a cat that's got the cream. she might then also try to lick our faces. most times these days it seems she's substituted kisses with licks anyway.

our feline visitor
anyhow, today we were again paid a visit by one of our neighbours' cats. (they sometimes drop by for a nosy wander round the house and a kindly scratch behind the ears.) naturally, this event delighted the bean no end.

she followed the cat wherever it moseyed and tried to converse with it, "cat just like ginger*. i show you." then she went off to get her toy to show this cat. later on, she told the cat, "that's big thomas**. see big thomas? come see." the cat, being a cat, was imperiously disdainful/dismissive of the bean's friendly overtures.

*ginger is one of the bean's stuffed toy cats.
** big thomas is actually a ride-along thomas the tank engine designed for toddlers. i had rented it this week from our local toy library.

non sequiturs

at bedtime, as the bean prattled to her daddy, her near-soliloquy went thus (spurred as it was by dh asking if she'd like a little brother or sister):

"i have a little cousin. his name matteo. there are two other cousins. edward and kwiffer. but not flo-flo and samuel."
dh had to interrupt her to say that florian and samuel are also her cousins. but this only waylaid her a smidgeon.
"there is a bell!", she pointed to a room decoration and segued into "ding dong bell, pussy's in the well. who put her in. little tommy thin. thomas and diesel 10! i dropped goldie*. little boy from the swimming class took it away!"

* her swim toy: a small, rotund yellow fish with big lips.

more classic phrases

some stuff the bean's been spouting/spouted recently:

1) "you are driving. don't talk." - this lecture was given as i tried to converse while driving her to school one day. talk about backseat driving!

2) "i don't eat this. it's nasty." - first time she used this line was in reference to bits of seaweed that was in her rice.

3) "haircherly" (for 'actually') - this adverb is sometimes misused in her speech but she does throw it out at least once a day.

4) "i seenk" (for 'i think') - e.g. "i like egg yolks. i seenk." (this statement is untrue actually as she balks each time i try to give her egg - in any form.) her pronunciation reminds me of that german/british advert with the deutsche ship's captain asking, "vat are you sinking?" of the british captain on the 'sinking' ship.

5) she was well pleased with the fit of her new swim goggles today and told me why: "it fits. it's perfect!"

purple pants & the big potty

some good news to report on the toilet-training front...

a) the bean has now been in panties (instead of nappies) for 1 week now. once she realised how much more comfy trainers are to nappies (with their bulk), she's insisted on wearing panties all the time. (although we put her in all-in-one nappies for night sleeps still.)

there is the occasional 'accident', when she'd come tell me she needs to go wee wee after she'd done it. but i try to stave off these incidents by prompting her very regularly: e.g. after breakfast, before heading out the house, coming home, after dinner or snacks etc.

b) although we have been ready to put the bean on the "big potty" (i.e. the adult potty) for some time - what with buying at least 2 children's toilet seats for her use - she was weepily resistant to using it, adamant to stick to her "small potties". in fact, she was so resistant to the whole idea, she actually threw a HUGE tantrum after i'd tried her on it for a few days, saying, "no more, mummy, okay? i don't sit on big potty."

but we had a breakthrough recently. our montessori under 3s facility has only 1 restroom - with a kid's toilet seat for use. i'd been observing the bean carefully the whole morning and noticed that she was getting a bit antsy and that enough time had elapsed from the last wee to warrant a visit to the restroom asap. so i brought her there. she was willing to come with me. but once i told her that there wasn't a small potty, only a potty with a child's toilet seat, she immediately said, "mummy go wee wee. i don't sit on big potty."

i then gave her a choice. i told her that she could either hold it till we got home, or she could wee in the big potty (with the kid's seat installed). i said that she must not wee in her panties as i would get extremely cross. she was by then halfway to the door then she stopped and came back to me and got onto the big potty! impossible to describe how pleased and proud i was. wanted to tell the whole world about it.

anyhow, since that fateful wednesday morning, she has been happy to sit on the big potty. i would now say that she uses it about 60% of the time.

...YAY!

i had a busy day mama

i love this classic phrase from the bean, "i had a busy day" that she trots out every second or third day.

she first used it on dh about 5 weeks ago when dh came home one evening and asked what she did at "school". he reported to me that she appeared not very interested in his question and merely replied, "i had a busy day daddy" and walked off.

anyhoo, 2 days ago she actually elaborated on her busy day by telling me the things and places she'd been to - a first! - "i went to toy library. i went to playground. i see xxx at school. i had a busy day mama."

1st baby proms failure?

took the bean to a baby proms at the opera house yesterday thinking that she would enjoy a different performance experience - one that combined art with music.

it turned out to be a rather more cerebral and staid affair although quite a number of kids did get 'it'. however, the bean was not so impressed and i had to keep prompting her on what was happening 'on stage' - really a large plastic screen on which a painter was trying to illustrate the story of a red dot. perhaps because it was a darkened room and the painter was a man (she has an aversion to any strange males of late), whatever the reason, the bean wouldn't keep still for long and at one point she even asked, "mama read me a story" and tried to rifle through my bag.

i asked if she enjoyed it when the performance ended and she said yes. but i wonder if she had really absorbed anything...e.g. the slightly abstracted trees that the artist painted the bean thought were "lollipops" and that the sun he painted was really a "starfish". so maybe the narrative eluded her.

maybe her initial enthusiasm to go to the proms was to see her other set of grandparents. whilst in the car she did shout, "we go see nai nai ye ye in august in opera house!" (i have told her that we would be seeing them in august, but she must take "august" to be an actual place.) well, perhaps her one lesson from this proms is the realisation that they don't reside there afterall.

beauty & the beast OR jekyll & hyde (the toddler version)

today was a pretty good demo of the bean's dual nature a la jekyll & hyde midget-style.

we had to go to a busy shopping centre to sort out our banking and have some "yum cha" (as they call "dim sum" over here). the bean behaved very well for most of the outing. she was happy to play with the bead frame toy at the bank for a while and to listen to a thomas & friends story before she got bored.

then after we took a queue number from the dim sum restaurant we paid a visit to borders. there was a nice children's section in the book store where we found a book about diggers. i told the bean to take it to the reading table and she obediently did so thus allowing me some time to browse the shelves without distraction.

shortly after, though, i thought i'd better pop my head round to see how she was getting on.

she was doing fine without me apparently and appeared to be entertaining 2 ladies who were also sitting at the table. when i came up to them one of them told me that the bean had been reading to herself and pointing things out to them. (she'd the book opened on her lap.) we were soon joined by dh and they asked us the bean's age. (she's the same age as one of the ladies' daughters.) the woman added as she walked away that the bean was very good to sit and read by herself.

at dim sum the bean attracted the attentions of the servers - even though she didn't put in any effort to charm - she was either too busy stuffing her face or turned shy and quiet. still, despite not cooperating, she was rewarded with a chocolate frog by one of the waitresses!

i think things sort of deteriorated after that. perhaps the bean was fatigued; perhaps she was bored by the grownup preoccupations; perhaps chocolate was the bean's kryptonite...whatever. in any case, carpark-bound, as i wheeled her towards an escalator she spied one of those dratted musical mini-rides (where you slot in a small fortune and get 10 seconds of canned music and the airplane/dolphin/car/etc makes vague bumps and shudders). she got very excited and wanted to get out of her pushchair pronto. i pretended not to understand and we wheeled her away kicking and screaming her lungs out, "noooooo! that one! that one! noooooo! i don't go home! i don't go home!" (repeat ad nauseum)

determinedly, i avoided eye contact with anyone as she carried on the titanic tantrum on our long walk to the car. and then when we had to get her out of the pushchair she became the kind of squirmy, screaming monster-toddler i'd always shaken my head and tut-tutted at, the kind one sees devil-spawned by other parents, the kind one thinks ah, but my little angel will never do that...until today.

there was a snowball's chance in hell that she would allow us to put her into her car seat and dh didn't even whisper the idea. i just sat her facing me and pulled the seatbelt over us.

she wailed for a bit more after i calmly told her a fib: the carousel was broken...that's why we didn't see any children on it...(repeat)... soon the lie worked its magic. she was still a bit sobby but she bought it.

once she was calmer i then told her that we were not supposed to let her sit with me: if a policeman saw us he'd get very cross with daddy and mummy and punish us by making us pay a big fine, which is a lot of money.

the bean didn't like that at all. she said, "no. policeman not hurt mummy, daddy. no. i don't let policeman hurt mummy and daddy." i thought that was awfully sweet...from a little demon.

poet laureate in the making?

dh was chatting to the bean as they were eating brekkie this morning. he said something about singing songs or nursery rhymes and that set the bean off.

the bean: "yah! goldilocks and the three bears."

dh: "do you know a song about goldilocks and the three bears?"
then he made up some lines about the characters to the tune of thomas and friends's theme song.

bean: "nooooo."

dh: "how does it go then?"

bean: "goldilocks and the three bears. goldilocks and the golden hair."

we were impressed but that was as far as she got, so we are not convinced that she did the rhyme deliberately.

still, maybe we should start looking at applications to oxbridge?... ...

who's fat in the family

the other day when i was putting on my swimmers the bean was hurrying me up and fussing around. i cast a critical eye on the whole in the mirror and sighed,
"mummy's fat."

she looked at me with a smile and said,
"nooo. mummy not fat. (pause)
daddy fat."

all can be forgiven...

p.s. i solemnly swear that i had not implanted this idea in the bean.

obnoxious behaviour?

the bean is definitely exerting her will these days; found her ego and is using it to the max.

take this afternoon. when i found the bean had moved onto a different activity, i asked if she'd finished playing with her lego set that she'd left sitting on the floor (with the implication that she should therefore pack it away), she said, "no. (pause) i busy at the moment." (!!!)

i am also finding it difficult to get her to go to the potty willingly lately. when we wake each morning it is a lottery game of whether she'd like to perform her ablutions or whether i have to use a combination of coercion and bribery to get acquiescence.

i can almost believe that the middle east "problem" could be easier to resolve than my daughter's intransigence!

another horrible development is her preference for "pink". i suspect that the bean has probably absorbed this insidious virus through observation of other little girls. for the past week or so she'd ask to wear pink-coloured clothes. i have taken to calling some shades of pink "violet" and "lilac" in the vain hope of expanding her repertoire - both in vocabulary and sartorially.

i don't care much for the opinion that it is natural for girls to like pink. it is an unfounded theory that is truly sexist. there is too much out there that is mono-coloured pink (albeit in various hideous shades) all marketed to girls and parents from infancy. it is brainwashing by media and commerce.

a few classic pronouncements

the bean had some classic lines today.

when i asked if she would like to speak to her popo on the phone, she primly said, "no thank you" without looking up from eating a small bowl of blueberries.

later, at dinnertime, when i tried to charm some nutritious tofu, tempeh and carrots into her, she finally (after MUCH MUCH persuasion and negotiation) gave in and reluctantly (opening her mouth as small as possible) ate a tiny piece, before declaring sullenly, "mummy i don't like tofu anymore."

then at bedtime, when we were horsing around a bit getting her dressed in her pjs, she playfully went, "bububububububububububub...(pause)...i am a bubber!", and giggled.

we have gone a week without bf milk!

as posted earlier, the bean had been going on only 1 bf milk session for a few weeks - part of my gradual weaning 'plan'*.

then i decided to wean the bean off bf milk completely last week. it started on the friday morning (2 may) when i refused to allow her to bf when she got antsy between 4-6 am. she cried, shouted, pleaded and prodded and pulled, but i outmanoeuvred her. when she woke up properly just before 7am she demanded, "i want bread and honey!"

this became the pattern for the week; the bean asks for bread and honey for breakfast everyday. now that bf milk has ceased, i find that she doesn't reject cow's milk (hurrah!) and in fact will drink a whole glass of it.

does she miss bf milk? you bet your bottom dollar! when she goes to bed, she still sometimes slyly tries to pull up my blouse/t-shirt but it's mainly a half-hearted attempt. unfortunately, the 4-6am wake-up call remains a fixture. it's my hope that now we have ceased bfg, she will slowly learn to sleep through the night to 7am. she still needs me as her sleeping mate - i am her teddy bear. but instead of letting her wake up and walk to the master bedroom and climb in with dh and i, i have decided to sleep in her bed with her: hoping that she will learn to sleep through in her own bed.

anyway, i think it's been a success weaning the bean off bf milk. my goal of bfg till the bean turned 2 has been reached. she is eating a variety of different foods - not as varied as i hope but at least she takes cow's milk now - and she is still alert, happy and playful during her waking hours. i am glad i took a gradual approach to weaning instead of the cold turkey option. that would've been too traumatic for both of us.

* it was not a proper weaning plan at all. i just decided to cut down the feeds one at a time and see how the bean responded. when i got more fed up with bfg i then cut down yet another feed. and this went on until i decided it was time to really end it.

the "real thomas" tank engine

last week we took the bean on a special outing - a ride on an actual steam train that looks like thomas the tank engine. it is a quarterly event held at the zigzag railway in the blue mountains and i thought since the bean is so obsessed with thomas, why not an actual train experience?

suffice to say that the bean enjoyed it although it may have been a little overwhelming for her at first. she was also a bit nonplussed about having to sit in the train instead of being where she could stare at thomas's 'face', but the rides at 'tidmouth sheds' made up for the boring real train ride.

but now she calls this the "real thomas", as differentiated from book or tv thomas!

new(ish) speech developments

what's going on?
for at least 2 weeks now, whenever the bean wants to know what i am doing she would come over and ask in a very serious voice, "what going on mama?"
like today. she had been playing on her own for a while when she must have suddenly felt the need for my company, so she came over to where i was hanging up the washing and even though she knew what i was doing, she still asked, "what going on mama?"
i was not sure if she referred to something more profoundly philosophical (such as the existential state of the world) but i just answered as simply as i could, "just hanging the washing to dry."

birthday celebrations replay
i don't know if it's the influence of the song "it's my birthday today" by justine clarke (on a cd - i like to sing - that is constantly played in the car) but this afternoon the bean informed me that, "my birthday today mama. i want presents. with big ribbons. purple. pink!"

where's the tickle monster?
since sunday, when dh or i asks her if she knew where the tickle monster is, she would point to some random place and say, "over there", knowing full well that one of us would be launching a tickle-fest on her by responding variously, "are you sure it's not over here?"/"no it's not; it's here!"

gender-bender & then some
i've posted about her referring to herself as a boy. well now it's a bit more precise: "little boy!"
99% of the time when i sayang her and say that she's "mummy's little girl", she'd retort, "nooo."
if i ask her, "then what are you?" she'd proudly/triumphantly/cheekily say, "little boy!"
but yesterday, instead of claiming to be a boy, she just went, "miao!" and miming a kitten bouncing off my shoulders and head, she went, "miao! miao! miao! little kitten! bouncing off mummy!" she was shaking with laughter and then she finally admitted to being "silly".

missing her daddy
last evening when it was nearing bathtime, the bean suddenly went very pensive and pouty. she moped around the living room and then declared, "i want daddy. where's daddy? i want daddy."
when i asked if she would like to speak to him on the phone (he was still at work) she said, "no! i want daddy here. daddy at home!"
this evening she missed him again at bathtime but it was just a one-line pout this time, "i want daddy."

yes i am

the bean had to wait a bit for her tea tonight and she got a little antsy about it, even leaving the goggle box to pester me in the kitchen. so to distract her, i asked her, "aren't you going to watch little einsteins?"

the ruse worked and she immediately turned around, tossing back her reply, "yes i am."

a puppetry 1st

we attended our first puppet show today, and i think the bean enjoyed it. the show was titled hickory dickory dock so i think she expected more of the clock and the mouse. but in fact, they were featured only at the beginning and end of the show which strung together several disparate stories - like a vaudeville act.

there were 2 parts of the show separated by a short interval. the stories performed were all quite apt for the age group (2-4 yr olds): peter rabbit & farmer macgregor's veg garden (part 1); what's the time, mr wolf? and 10 laughing clowns (part 2).

during the main performances hand puppets were the main 'actors' - all performed by a sole puppeteer (the "lady" as the bean calls her). but the kids were shown wooden, stringed puppets at the beginning of each half of the show. i think leah really liked the frog that came out as well as the dancing monkey and violin-playing gypsy.

at the end of part 2, there was a shadow puppet segment and that was well done. however, because the screen for this was located at a corner, and rather small, i felt that some of the kids may not have been able to appreciate the performance properly. e.g. from where the bean was sitting on the floor, a 'stage' light was actually blocking part of the screen. i told her to stand up so she could see the entire screen to better enjoy the performance.

she was quite fascinated by the puppets as they are really toys that can move. she was especially taken by a green hanging puppet that she insisted was a dinosaur. (the 'theatre', really a sparse shoplot in a suburban shopping plaza, had strung up various puppets from the ceiling as part of the minimalist decor.)

however, i was impressed that she was not at all clingy at the theatre. i told her to sit at the front with the other children (most of whom were slightly older - maybe round 3 years old) and she wasn't fazed that i didn't sit with her (she did look back to see where i was). instead, she started chatting with a mother who sat upfront with her 2 charges. the bean kept pointing things out (characters from the performances, or the "dinosaur" above, et al) and that poor accosted mom had to repeat after the bean in agreement.

during the interval when the bean came to me for refreshment, i saw a handbell sitting on the "box office" counter and pointed it out to her. we soon found out the purpose of this instrument, when the puppeteer came out to announce the end of the interval and the imminent start of part 2. as soon as the bean saw the puppeteer pick up the handbell, she zoomed over and said, "i wan ring bell."

their brief exchange was as follows:
"oh, would you like to help me ring the bell?"
"i wan ring bell."
"alright, will you help ring the bell?"
"i wan ring bell."
i guess once the bean has set her sights on something she can be quite single-minded.

in any case, as soon as she got the handbell she shot out the door of the theatre. i dumped my rucksack in a mild panic. as i got up from my chair to check on the bean, i saw a grandfather smiling at me, so i said, "she's making a run with the bell." (or something to that effect.) but the puppeteer was with the bean, teaching her how to hold and ring the bell.

i think she was the envy of some of the other children, but then she seems to be the one who was able to make the most of the opportunity...with a little (unwitting) help from me.

bf update

i've whittled our bf sessions from 2-3 times per day to just 1 now. the bean's been put to sleep in her "big bed" for several weeks, but she is only just learning to sleep without relying on bfg.

for the first couple of nights there were tears and implorations but i was steadfast that i wouldn't give in. then on the 3rd, or was it the 4th, night she fell asleep without asking for "milk milk". however, and this a huge however, she still needs me cuddled up close to her before she can go to sleep.

i am my daughter's security blanket/ cuddle toy.

my baby has asthma

one of my minor fears has been realised: the bean has been diagnosed with childhood asthma. she'd been having an irritating (to me) cough at night for about 2 months but because it went away during the day and because all of us thought this could be from teething symptoms (all the extra drool), i wasn't unduly worried. at least not until this monday past when she had a very runny nose the entire day, followed by a night of extreme wheeziness.

so i brought her to the doctor's where she behaved impeccably - she went straight to the children's corner in the waiting room and started colouring with the materials provided, and when she eventually met the doctor she wasn't shy or afraid. she was a bit fidgety because she didn't have any colouring materials in the office but she did a little exploring - she even went to stand on the weighing scale without being asked.

anyhow, the prognosis ain't too good. on top of this chronic asthma, she has an ear infection (left side only) and a cold. her breathing is laboured and the doctor was a bit surprised to find the bean so bright and happy, belying the seriousness of her condition. the doc said maybe it's just leah's nature but that with the ear infection she'd have expected her to be more miserable.

so we're back on ventolin and singulair, both medication we're familiar with because of the bean's previous bout of bronchiolitis. she also has to have a not-so nice tasting antibiotic (for the ear infection which the doc suspects is bacterial), which i am proud to say she downs (albeit reluctantly and with a screwed up face) like a little trooper.

i hope she grows out of this asthma soon...

thomas the tank engine

for a couple of weeks at least now the bean has been obsessed with thomas - thomas the tank engine. (thank god it ain't barbie!) everyday she wakes up and asks to "watch thomas deeveedee mamee" or "thomas teevee". i've lost count the number of times i keep telling her that we don't have the dvd nor that i know if a show will be guaranteed on tv that day.

to cap her obsession, just before bathtime tonight she went, "puff puff puff!" i didn't know what she was on about till i was told that "leah choo choo train. puff puff. like thomas."

later, just before she drifted off to sleep she said, "nemo*, thomas, leah's friends."

* yes, nemo from finding nemo - every durn anemonefish is now called "nemo" and any fish that is blue in colour is "dory".

i love you daddy

as we were putting the bean to bed last night, dh was bowled over when she suddenly said, "i love you daddy." and reached out to give him a big hug. he was so chuffed by it.

more on manners

finally! today the bean actually put her hand to her mouth before she coughed. i noticed this as i was sitting beside her in the car, so i gave her the deserved praise.

before, she would usually cough and then when reminded about the hand gesture she would proceed to make a fake cough (which sounds like a little belch really) before placing her hand over her mouth.

"oh my god"

i admit, hesitantly, nervously, that the bean may have picked up the phrase, "oh my god" from me some time ago, but she does use it well in context.

e.g. once at the beach, when she got excited about the waves splashing at her she squealed it out a couple of times.

and more recently, she used it to refer to the number of spiders (on spider webs) she can find in the garden or near the house. she isn't afraid of spiders (yet) though and thinks that they are "cute".

her other variations on the theme: "oh me", "oh my", "oh my gosh".

"listen justeeen! animals"

for the past week or so everytime we got into the car, she follows "seat belt please mummy [or daddy]" with "listen justine! animals!" which in bean-speak means: let's listen to justine singing; the song about animals please.

she knows which one it is too so if we put on a different track, as soon as she hears the intro she goes, "no no not dat one! animals!"

the song she harps about is the gumtree family and it is sung by justine clark, a presenter from abc's playschool on her album i like to sing. we have both the cd album "deedee" as well as the dvd "deedeedee".

the bean's fave song on this album used to be the title track but these days she only cares for the animals being sung about under or on the gumtree. she always tries to sing along, mumbling along to most lines (usually half a second behind) but really belting out the last line of the chorus: "part of the gumtree fameelee!"

our 1st royal easter show as a family

a few years back dh and i had gone to the sydney easter show and loved it - from the lumberjacks throwing axes at targets to the different homemade produce and crafts on sale. it must be one of the largest, if not the largest, agricultural event in oz open to the public.

so now that we are living here, we had to do the easter show again, especially as the bean can appreciate the farm animals on display. unfortunately, we "chose" the wrong day to go - on good friday itself - and it was overcast and wet. the coldest day in march so far (max. 19 degrees C), bringing with it a real feel of autumn-winter (even dh wore his lightweight fleece jumper and his raincoat).

i don't know whether the easter show has always been this big, but this year it lasts over a week (from march 20 to april 2) and every night there will be fireworks. needless to say we didn't plan to stay till the evening - we don't have such stamina and the bean certainly won't last that long.

anyhow, the first thing we went to see were the cats at the cat pavilion. the breeds that were being judged that day included ragdolls and norwegian forest cats. and there was a ragdoll for people to see and stroke during the purina cat talk. its fur was wonderfully soft and it lay limp in its handler's arms looking faintly sulky and petulant. when the bean entered the cat pavilion, she was "i want that one!" at every single cat. she did get to touch the ragdoll that was being displayed but she could spend an entire day happily playing with a cat if she was allowed.

post-cats, we went to the dog pavilion where dogs were being trotted out and being judged. that wasn't very interesting and we went to watch the woodchopping instead, in the stadium that
has been purpose-built for this 'sport'. we got there in time to see some lumberjacks chop trees. there was a token canuck who was useless really. took him forever to do just one side but he got there in the end and the crowd encouraged him on towards the end (especially this enormous chap sitting in front of us).

the woodchop was dh's favourite event and the only thing he would come to the show for, really. and i have to admit that it was pretty interesting to see these rugged men and women make short work of very chunky slabs. (the commentator seems to think that everything needed explaining to the audience. and at one point, he even told the audience that the hunks of wood being used for most of the competitions are called "slabs", "that's s-l-a-b ladies and gentlemen". i had to roll my eyes there and stifle a giggle.) it is quite an international sport in that we saw reps from kiwistan, usa and canada besides those from the other oz states - queenslanders being fairly well represented after the nsw-ers.

the bean got very restless after about 4-5 of these woodchopping and sawing events. a change of scene was called for, although dh would've gladly stayed for the axe-throwing contest. too bad; maybe next year we'll get a chance to see that.

when we got out of the woodchop stadium, i saw a sign for the r.m.williams's sale so we went to the store, which had a few ersatz stables leading to it with real horses in them. (r.m.williams is a large chain of expensive country-bush gear, selling clothes and gorgeous boots to city-slickers who would never be within 10 yards of a tractor.) the bean was very very taken with the horses, "i want that one!" to all 4 that were there.

after dh had indulged in his retail therapy, we went to another horse 'barn' where a dear little miniature pony was on display. children were allowed to come up to it and pet it. the owner said that it had no function other than as a family pet. it was gorgeous. a lovely black sweetie. the bean got a chance to stand next to it and stroke its mane and head.

we then did the 'heritage walk' and found a pony ride that didn't have a massive queue. the bean was probably one of the youngest and smallest there but she behaved very well on the pony, whose name was snot (yes, really). dh held onto the bean as she and snot were walked around a paddock, and he said that the whole time she kept going, "riding pony! having fun!" so i was well pleased we did this.

after this we went to see the cows, whom the bean insisted were "horses" instead. we had to repeatedly assure her that cows can indeed be this big, especially the holsteins. as the cow barns were really aromatic and i was feeling faint from not eating a proper lunch (and the miserable weather didn't help with my mood either really), we speeded through those and decided that the farmyard nursery would not be for us. i just had visions of the bean contracting mad cow disease or hand-foot-mouth from too close bovine and poultry encounters. i know it's irrational but...

we then went to see what the kids world pavilion was about but it just had stalls selling very gaudy, plasticky toys and tat for kids. big yuck! however, it was useful as a temporary retreat from the rain that was beginning to sleet down.

we missed the morning abc kids show as we were watching the lumberjacks - i was hoping the bean could see the bananas in pyjamas in real life - but with the rain in the afternoon, i doubted that there would be a repeat performance, so we did a brief visit of the world bazaar (tat for adults) before finally entering the woollies food pavilion (my objective).

in the food pavilion, also sheltering from the rain were the rest of the easter show crowds. we managed to get some free wheaties samples from the uncle tobys (or was it the kelloggs?) stall and huddled at a costi seafood oyster bar table, where dh and i took turns to look for food: he for more free wheaties and me for sushi (which i paid for).

i think some folks could have free meals at the pavilion just by going round the stalls and getting enough free samples: e.g. we managed to get some biscuits and cheese dip and chocolate macaroons.

after meandering around the woollies pavilion and then through the arts and crafts section, we headed out to see if it was worth it to visit the showbags pavilion, as i was in two minds about getting the thomas the tank engine showbags. they seem quite interesting, with a wheely bag, beach ball, etc etc advertised inside, but i have been disappointed with the quality of showbag contents before and wasn't willing to part good money for tat.

then as we turned i saw the longest queue i had ever seen (even longer than those of the customs queues in the airport) - people were queueing just to get into the showbag pavilion - i didn't want to know what the queues at the showbag counters would be like. so i had to not look back and repeat to myself, "je ne regrette rien."

that was the finale for me - we walked back to the car park and sang to the bean to make sure she kept awake. she was a little trooper the whole day. apart from some minor truculence earlier on when she insisted on meandering off on her own, she had been quite accommodating.

dh remarked that the easter show seemed bigger this time, or maybe it was just that we had the bean with us and negotiating our way around is a little bit slower.

p/s. i felt strangely flat walking back to the car park from the show, but what cheered me up was this very unexpected "have a happy easter!" from a man on duty who was monitoring the buses ferrying people to and from the show. the kindness of strangers sometimes...

rude boy

took the bean to a 'country' festival this morning, which is really just a 'bush' band on stage performing songs about sheep shearing and a couple of fenced pens with goats/chooks/ducks/sheep/rabbits. there were free 'train' and pony rides but the queues were so long it was not worth waiting: imagine just me (dh couldn't be with us) standing in line for over an hour with a toddler when it is near lunchtime and there are kids eating ice creams nearby...nah-uh.

anyhow, despite the heat and the crowds (it was a spectacle of prams/strollers too and it made for quite interesting traffic congestion around the kindy farm exhibits) i had to honour my promise to show the bean "farm animals". i think she was more fascinated by the rabbits - there were a few largish ones twitching their noses about - as she was able to pet one very docile floppy-eared critter at the zoo 2 weeks ago. so i had to find a space for the bean to see the animals and especially the rabbits up close.

after waiting patiently for other children to have their fill and get out the way, she finally had a chance to stroke or at least get closer to a rabbit. but after a short while, a boy (considerably older - maybe around 6?) who had been hogging the rabbit space started to shove the bean out the way. so i went up to them and told the bean loudly, "this boy is very rude for shoving you." and then extricated her from the scene. because by then the rabbit was trying to escape from the boy's clutches too and i was thirsty and needed a break.

the organisers had promised dorothy the dinosaur and wags the dog (they are part of the pantheon of characters from the wiggles' tv show) but it was approaching high noon and there was no sign of them. so i got the bean a lemonade and we went home. me having decided that i didn't want to wait another 20 minutes in the heat for a character in a saggy suit with an irritating high pitched giggle (i.e. dorothy).

i am not sure what the objective of this post is. maybe just to observe that the bean still isn't quite able to stand up for herself. for ince, she didn't/wouldn't muscle her way to the fence of the animal pen the way the other kids did and didn't really fight back when another toddler muscled in, pushing her out of the way.

when dh was told about the "rude boy"'s behaviour, he advised that next time, the bean should say, "stop! don't push me." to whoever tries it.

everybody poos

"everybody poos" is the title of a book by a japanese author. it's a nice one to teach the bean that all animals and people poo, and that people poo in special places.

a couple of weeks ago she took this lesson really to heart and would inform anyone who would listen that "everybody wees" as well as "everybody poos".

this morning, when i strapped her into the car seat, i told her not to wee there (she was only wearing a swim nappy - offers no protection to my car at all), and she gave me a 'of course i know that' look and said immediately, "wee wee in potty!" - i was both relieved and proud.

and more, sort of, on this subject...

when her nai nai and ye ye were still visiting us (they've sadly returned to the uk), the bean would go to their room in the mornings and greet them.

one particular morning, her ye ye had got of the shower and was alone in the bedroom when he heard a little voice pipe up, "ye ye got bottom!"

he turned around to see the bean beaming at him, to which he could only reply, "yes, everybody has a bottom."

years of therapy to come?

one day, some weeks and weeks ago, after the bean's 'uncle whim' had buckled her into the car seat he took the liberty - unwisely it turns out - to bite a bit of the pink jelly snake she had in her hand. however, he did this without asking her first, and because he did it so quickly/abruptly, i guess the bean was taken aback. in fact, her look of petrified horror was a classic - the rest of us in the car, her nai nai, ye ye and i, were worried that she would burst into tears. in fact, i think she was pretty close to it.

anyway, since this incident, whenever a pink jelly snake is offered to the bean, she would say, without fail, "uncle whim. bit head off hnake." it's a matter of fact statement, rather like reciting a mantra.

sometimes, she would preface this statement by saying, "naughty boy". prompting us to ask, "who's naughty?" and to which she would then trot out the homily, "uncle whim. (pause) bit head off hnake."

"whaadat?"

the bean's definitely speaking better and using more and more words and sentences so that we can have a nice long conversation with her sometimes. however, her enunciation is still far from perfect.

e.g. she can't pronounce the "s" sound if the "s" is paired with a consonant. to wit: "hark" (shark), "hip" (ship), "hnake" (snake), "himming" (swimming), etc.

the odd thing is she can say "lots" properly, i.e. if a word ends with the "s" sound: "else", "house"...and usually if the "s" is paired with a vowel: "sea", "sand"...etc.

the other one she can't get right is the phrase "what is that?" or "what's that?", which from her cherubic lips becomes "wha dat?" - she sounds like she is about to go into a rap song or something everytime she says it. and she uses this phrase A LOT. she will point to a picture or object and ask "what dat?", sometimes not even waiting for an answer, and most times, knowing the answer herself. usually, i will try to turn the tables and ask her, "what do YOU think it is?"

"Cheeeers!"

cheeeers
not sure if the bean is picking up alcoholic behaviour from her ye ye and nai nai but she does tend to want to raise her glass at nearly every meal. she would raise her glass of oj/apple juice/honey water/choc milk (you delete) to her ye ye and/or nai nai and it doesn't matter if the other person only has a cup of tea. it's still, "cheeeers, nai nai!" and one *must* clink cups/glasses to complete the ritual.

count to the beat
the other evening the bean took out her xylophone and banged away on it. then she started counting aloud, "one! two!..." etc till she got to ten. she couldn't say eleven properly except with prompting then she continued counting. when she got to fifteen though, there was a very slight pause before she said triumphantly, "nineteen!" and then stopped.
unfortunately, she couldn't quite synchronise the xylophone banging to the counts.

bubbles bubbles everywhere

last saturday the bean was given a bottle of bubbles with a wand in her music class (which she then didn't want to let go off the entire day) and it's been another fixation ever since.

if it wasn't "daddy blow bubbles" it would be "mummy" or "nai nai" but usually it's "ye ye blow bubbles". and when the bubbles are blown, she instantaneously turns into psycho baby, shaking her hands, dancing on tip toe, stamping on bubbles that have landed on the floor or waving at them, all the while squeaking staccato phrases: "ooh ooh ooh!" "bubbles!" "oh oh oh!" "bubbles! every-where! every-where!"

at one point, her ye ye heard her actually cry out, "too much bubbles!" as if the excitement was overwhelming.

let's hear it again...and again...and again...

it's interesting how the bean can get fixated on a particular nursery rhyme or song and would be able to endure multiple repeats of said song/rhyme almost ad infinitum.

nai nai and ye ye bought her a cd of nursery songs sung by a playschool host and it's since been the most requested (in fact, the only requested) cd in her collection. everyday it's been "dee-dee!" (i.e. "cd") and "george sing please!"; then it seems she'd pick a song from it to repeat.

so today the tune of the day was "the sailor went to sea to see what he could see see see..." i decided to put it on repeat mode so that i needn't keep going back to the stereo when it ended.

two days ago though, her song of the day was a nonsense one about 3 elephants having fun up on a spider's web.

oompah oompah!

the bean has been learning a few new songs* from her ye ye and nai nai. one of the early ones that she used to like she has now decided she doesn't. that was "we're riding along on the crest of the wave/ and the sun is in the sky/ 2-3-4/ keeping our eyes on the distant horizon/ look out for passersby..." and she used to like doing the actions to the words, albeit a half second later. then recently everytime we tried to sing it in the car she would stick her fingers in her ears and say, "no no no. not that one."

her latest favourite is "gingangoolygoolygooly whatcha gingangoo gingangoo". on our recent hunter valley holiday, to please her, we had to sing it several times in a row as we headed back to the cottage from a day's wine-tasting. she particularly liked the "oompah!" with raised fist that her ye ye does to punctuate the end of the song.

although we're back home now, tonight, during bathtime, knowing how much the bean likes the song her nai nai decided to sing it to her. and when she got to the end, before any prompting, the bean raised her left fist and shouted "oompah!", giggling hysterically after she did it.

later on, her nai nai told me that we'd need to watch it as we wouldn't be able to put anything past the bean.

*these are very very old cub scouts' songs.