More anecdotes from my 2year old

I know she is going on 12 I swear. On her birthday morning I found her in the lounge by herself reading her books and making animal noises to herself. Then when we said happy birthday to her she corrected us to sing her full name including middle and last name. 😳

We prayed for my grandmother a lot when she was unwell. My toddler contributed to the prayer by asking for Taipo to walk and stand again. When my grandmother passed away, I told my little one that Taipo has gone home to be with Jesus. She promptly says Taipo walk, Taipo stand and Taipo fly!

She was flipping through the Jack and Beanstalk book and then loudly declares that Jack was a naughty boy. I asked her how so and she said cause he took the giant's toys and didn't share.

She used to have an unhealthy obsession with my boobs. To wean her, I told her my boobs aren't for her anymore. Then she said very loudly one day whilst pointing at my chest "No nainai" which Mr.HEA took to mean she thinks I have no boobs 😒

Watching the Westminster terror news on BBC, she got excited by the picture of Big Ben on screen. Then she misheard the news of the policeman falling down so she declares the Big Ben has fallen down.

She walks in whilst I am sitting down to breakfast. Instead of Good morning, she says,"what are you doing sweetie pie?"

She's begun to read to herself a lot. She can memorise some words from some of the pages so she will say it with inflections that mimics how we must sound when reading to her. She's even memorised some of the full sentences and narrate the story based on the pictures. If we are around, she may also pick up the book to face us and point to something on the page like her educators at nursery does and say "See? See?"

Stalling bedtime she runs down a list of food demands to see which one I'd relent to. Upon being successful with her milk request, she quickly gulps down a cup and then asks me for milk again. I remind her she's just had some. She informs me "That's hot milk mummy. I want cold milk now."

Having given her a tub of yoghurt. I ask,"what must you say?" She replies whilst holding out the tub at me,"Open"

She saw me hiding the CDs that she loved playing with because I was afraid she may scratch them so she said," that's not funny mummy. It's not very nice"

When her daddy has done something or said something right she'll either say "Clever daddy" or "Well done daddy".

I walked in on her sticking a whole pack of shiny stickers on her daddy's face. "What are you doing?" She replies,"Making daddy pretty" 😂

It was raining when I dropped her off at nursery. By the time her daddy picks her up, it was drizzling still ( it is Britain after all). 2yr old shakes her hand exasperatedly in the air, "It's raining Again?!"

After a fun evening having dinner with her Godmother, she declares the next day she wants to wear yellow, just like Godma. I put her in the only Yellow top she has and she stares at it, me holding my breath in case there is a tantrum coming. Puzzled she asks,"Does Godma's jumper have a frog too?"

We had pizzas delivered one Friday night and she got really excited greeting them at the door. Early the next morning she greeted the IKEA delivery guys at the door with me and after seeing them lay down several large flat pack boxes, she demanded, "where's the pizza?"

After helping me put together a flatpack bench, her daddy walked in and asked her what she had built. Having never seen one before she looks at it unimpressed and responds,"Another table".

She thinks the dinosaur's name is Sarah-tops. And she wants to know where's the Mummy-saurus.

As she is eagerly learning dinosaur names, one evening she points to a dinosaur in her book and quizzes us on its name. Her daddy whips out his iPhone and we fervently compare the images until we settle on the dinasaur it most resembles and then attempt to learn it's Latin name. Once we thought we'd got it, we tried to teach her but she stares blankly at us and declares simply, "It's the Orange dinosaur".


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Immigrants

Lately I have been reading about Asians in South East Asia. The generations of migration from China in search of a better life and the culture they brought along with them and how they have built themselves through adversity integrating their beliefs into a new environment adapting and learning the language as they went along. With my family, we had been settled in Malaysia for three generations. Only one of my many thirteen aunts and uncles had moved overseas and even then, it was to Singapore so geographically and culturally it wasn't very distant.

My grandparents arrived in Malaysia when they were eighteen. Their sea passage was definitely a lot less pleasant than mine and they had far less resources to get them settled in. Yet they have left this world with a legacy they built themselves on Malayan soil; fourteen families they leave behind all established in their own lives and keeping the values instilled in them. We all heard the stories of the hardships they had to endure growing their young families and businesses in this foreign land. My grandmothers couldn't even read or write. I shudder to think how scary the world would have seemed to them in that age.

I reflect upon my life and how in my short thirty three years I have found myself forging life in three continents. Each time it is similar, well I guess I can't count Malaysia cause I was born there, but there's always the foreignness at first where you don't know how to get anything done. Mainly you don't know what the equivalents are so where do you go to find stuff? Who do you call to fix things? How do you size up the society and area to decide if it is somewhere you'd like to settle down in?

I remember always the feelings of homesickness initially, but also the tingling sense of excitement knowing an adventure is just beginning. There is the figuring out of curiosities, like how does one get from A to B whilst perusing the nest of coloured train lines on a local transport map, or how to set up your finances so that you can purchase things to make you feel more at home? Even getting a phone line or internet just seems so frustrating especially when you usually have to use the phone or internet usually to get these set up to begin with!

Then the fun begins of picking out where you'd like to live. Exploring new places and neighbourhoods, finding out where the locals would hang and imagining yourself in their shoes seeing if it fits you. Some suburbs are bustling and inviting, others quiet and serene, some just grey and cold and void of signs of life. I reflect on the many homes I have lived in in my lifetime, thirteen so far and I know I haven't yet found my forever home, does this make me a nomad?

When you've sorted that out you begin to attend social environments to meet new friends. This is usually the chance I get to reinvent myself. My first move to Sydney I wanted to lose my geekiness (it wasn't considered cool yet then) and be part of the 'cool' crowd that explored the bar and club scenes together as we had all just reached the drinking age. My second move to London I found myself more open to meeting people who I could connect with mainly young working people discovering London/Europe together but I didn't hide who I was at this stage because socially I was more certain of who I am by now and what I firmly like and don't like.

Then slowly, after a year usually, this new country suddenly feels like home. You don't have to look up where you are going everyday. In fact you walk purposefully because you have somewhere to be, someone who is expecting you to turn up. You know where to buy you favourites and your home no longer smells unfamiliar to you.

I wonder if this was how it was like for my grandparents, but I suspect not. The world was tougher on them and to some even these days, I know it is still tough for them. I am grateful. I want my daughter who has been born in a country that's different from her mum's and her dad's birth countries, different too from her grandparents and great grandparents, I want her to know where she's come from and I want her to know who we all are (and were).

If the world is a big place then hopefully, being descended from diverse cultures, she'd always find similarity between hers and the new people she's meeting. If the world is small then may she always find where she needs to be and can belong.

Last night I had a dream of all the housemates I had shared a place with since I left my parents' house and how now we decided to find a home together again. It didn't end pretty so I think I know that that was a time of my life we'd never be able to recreate. But I am ever grateful we had a chance at it to begin with.

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To my 2 year old

You woke up this morning and decided to let me have a lie in. I woke to find you in the lounge entertaining yourself with your books.

Another year. What a journey it's been. We went from fighting and disagreeing on the crying it out method to really now enjoying our time with you. You made the parenthood thing seem all that much more worthwhile this year now that you talk and express yourself and exude self confidence.

Of course your skill set has improved by leaps and bounds in the last year and I know you and your friends are aware of each other now and they look forward to seeing you each day (they even made you a card for your bday which I am keeping to hopefully show you one day)as much as you look forward to being there with them in nursery. Your educators report that you are such a book lover, that you are caring and will readily give cuddles and say hi and bye to everyone you see at the nursery, that you help give out the water bottles at meal times, that you are really quite the tall poppy with yelling out the right answer when it comes to categories you know, that you are everyday a pleasure for them to be with. You are now branching too from books into exploring drawing, play dough, dancing and singing. For all of that I am ever so grateful and thankful because i just want you be happy and well-fulfilled.

Your daddy is so proud of you. Of how brave you are and your high threshold for pain. Indeed you are fearless poking at spiders and throwing yourself into swimming pools dive after dive, you will pick yourself up again after a fall and hobble along with just kisses to make you feel better. I hope I never project my own phobias onto you in our lifetime together.

I never thought I would end up with you. The determined, independent and straightforward little person that you are (which you got from your father), but also how seeking of positive reinforcement, imaginative and emotional you can be, taking after me. Perhaps this means you'd become a stronger woman than I am, rational and decisive like your father but empathetic and strategic like me. I quiver with excitement just imagining the person you could become and the endless possibilities there are for you that I didn't have because your father and I are so determined to give you the cultural and educational best that our worlds can offer you.

My darling daughter, for one, I still cannot forget how you told me in a dream that you are a daughter way before we met you or knew what gender you were. And how despite hoping for a boy, you've proven to me that I needed a girl as my first born and you've been ever so gentle with us as new parents being a good little girl that doesn't test your boundaries in ways that we are ill prepared for. You have in a way made parenting a toddler rather easy so far so I pray that you shall be just as understanding in your older years and dare I hope your teens? I get ahead of myself. Happy birthday darling! Looking forward to another year of joy and chats with you.




























I made the achievement cards a couple of weeks back and pre-empted a few things. In favour of not posting untruths, you haven't mastered the shapes yet but you are definitely better at potty training than I expected you would be.

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The years are short

Anecdotes from my toddler who is nowadays so full of sass:

Dad: are you causing havoc for mummy?
She looks up from the pile of stuff she's pulled out of my kitchen cupboards and grins. "Not yet," she cheekily replies.

She comes to me," Mummy High five?" As I put my hand out she withdraws and says, "Too slow".

Whenever her daddy is eating and she isn't, she'll walk up to him and demand,"Some"

She threw our ceramic monkey onto the tile floor and its head broke off. Two days later I had to take her to the doctor's and she requested we brought monkey in too. "The Dr said no more monkeys jumping on the bed!"

In front of her dad, I cheekily asked," Shall we cut up the Mango tomorrow when Daddy isn't around and share amongst ourselves?" She looks at me with a glint in her eye and says "Yeah!"

Points at my pimple scab and says "Yuck! Mummy face dirty"

Also points at bathroom mould near the taps,"Bathroom dirty". Yes Boss!

At any time when you ask her a question about something she wants or knows, she'd affirm with "Yeah" in the same intonation as "Duh!". All that's missing is the rolling of eyes, although I swear it's there sometimes in my mind.





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Children tie the feet of their mothers

There's something weighing on my mind and as the universe goes, when you're obsessing over something somehow an article or two that speaks to you will pop up on your social media feed. Perhaps the algorithms are just getting that much better.

I had a fight with my mother during CNY. I think she deserves a better life but she keeps putting others first and not fighting for herself.

I resent that. I have this complex from constantly being deprioritised by her. Other children were always more important than me. She'd take on board all the cousins so that she didn't have a rest day and the aunties could have child free days instead. She would buy toys for them usually using my Wishlist as a gauge as to what they may like but it's not for me. She said it was greater to give your best to others and that joy of giving is our best present.

And when we went on holidays she wouldn't come. Somehow believing that holidays were far too indulgent for her and not working or being 'useful' irked her somewhat. She'd stay behind to work whilst my bro and I went somewhere with a relative. The only holidays she went on she'd need it to be sold to her as meaningful. A networking event for the business, a time to reunite my grandmother with her daughters. Work and the unity of our extended family was all she cared about. Not so her own family unit. We were just meant to be model children who practiced all the values and met her high standards when it came to work ethic, generosity, kindness and selflessness. The only time I'd get to spend time with her is if we joined the family business. That was her only way she would believe. She'd make my sister in law and brother do the same. Marry them to the business because she cannot see a life beyond it. She calls it working for yourself.

I speak of all this in disdain. Yet my husband points out that I am no different ( though I implore he calls me out if I ever make my daughter feel as unimportant as I'd felt all my life) from her. I am my mother although I was raised by my grandmother. I am her in family values and the tireless need to make someone happy. Even the shopping penchant I inherited from my dad is channeled into buying gifts that make others happy. Spending money on myself always left me trying my hardest to justify my purchases with reasons other than I'm worth it.

But this isn't about me. It is my mother, a woman whom I hope would one day live for herself. Practice her meditation, become vegan, and attend Buddhist conferences. Perhaps one day she would allow my dad to pamper her in the way she covets without her feeling like it is not her right. One day she may actually finish her massage or facial relaxed and not jumping out of the bed because she has to rush off somewhere else.

That reminds me then to not make my daughter ever feel like she is not worth it. Whilst balancing it against her sense of self- entitlement. I must at least let her know that her happiness if based upon kind and sensible matters( as opposed to material things), is most certainly worth my attention and my time and one day, hopefully a partner's attention and time. Because I don't want her to be self deprecating, I don't want her to be taken for granted the way my mother is and the way I feel.

Which brings me back to the Indian proverb "Children tie the feet of their Mothers" that I read from an article on Mothers slowing down for their children. This morning when my toddler said to me (as she has been the past few days) that she wanted to walk to nursery, I chose to quash the nagging voice in me that I'd have to carry her half the way, that she'd make me late for my train and instead I allowed her to. She surprised me by not falling down once, not asking to be carried and I still made my train in to work. Perhaps my little girl is growing up too fast and I have to learn to be patient with her demands before she no longer enjoys walking with me and certainly before she learns to no longer ask me for such simple pleasures in life.



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