Junya turns 41 months today and Sakura is 18 months old!

So I’m sitting here typing this blog post with a slight panic. Usually I’d have a list of notes that I’ve taken down for their monthly happenings, but this month there was none. And I couldn’t even find many pictures of them taken the past month. 😨

What happened? First, I was away to Japan so I may have missed out some time spent together. But it was only 4 days out of a whole month. Secondly, both cheesiepetits were in school the entire month, and it really felt like I’m spending less and less time with them.😯

So here I am feeling slightly anguished whether this monthly update is slowly coming to an end, whether soon I would run out of things to update about them.

Anyway here it is!

 

For Junya

1st month , 2nd month , 3rd month , 4th month , 5th month , 6th month , 7th month 8th month, 9th month , 10th month , 11th month , 12th month , 13th month , 14th month 15th month , 16th month , 17th month , 18th months , 19th month , 20th month ,21st month , 22nd month , 23rd month 24th month , 25th month , 26th month , 27th month , 28th month , 29th month , 30th month , 31st month , 32nd month , 33rd month , 34th month , 35th month , 36th month , 37th month , 38th month 39th month and 40th month here.

 

Emotions

Junya is his usual self, at 3.5 years old he still has occasional bouts of tantrums, which I have come to live with and understand because he’s developing so many new emotions in his little body. But what I am looking at improving is to try to shorten the down time.

Most mothers I know always describe their kids as “stubborn”. Now I truly understand what they meant. He was adamant about things he wants and the ways he wants things to be done. And at this age, coaxing or distraction no longer works. I used to be able to stop his tantrum by saying things like “we can’t go for the boat ride if you are crying” or “if you can calm down then you may have the cookie”, but nowadays he just goes “no I don’t want boat ride anymore”, “no I don’t want cookie anymore”, or “I don’t want anything”.😑😑😑 And it really makes things extra difficult😫. Dealing with his sensitive emotions is really like walking on an eggshell you have to be so careful to not cause a crack and drop into a bottomless goo. Prevention is really the best cure right here.

A good hour could be wasted just because he refused to budge and I am not giving in to his demands. It is honestly very, very exhausting😞. Not to mention frustrating because sometimes I just don’t have the time to try to sort his feelings out with him (Sakura would be demanding my attention, the stew in the kitchen could go chaoda, the shop staff won’t be tolerating our family drama, etc etc etc…).

So I usually just ignored and let him sort his own feelings out, but I think sometimes he feels dejected that I did not sit it through with him. Recently he even learnt to be passive-aggressive by saying stuff like “hmmm…. mama dowan to help me (do whatever he wants)”…😮 It was heartbreaking and the guilt…

So in the middle of an emotional crisis, whenever I have time now, I will sit down next to him, and told him that I know he is feeling upset that [whatever happened], and it is okay that he is upset. It is okay to cry, but he needs to learn and try how to change his mood, because if he doesn’t, we will just be sitting here wasting our time away, mama is unhappy, papa is unhappy, Sakura is unhappy, he will continue to cry and nobody can help him. But if he changes his mood, we can carry on to do other happy things. Mama is happy, papa is happy, Sakura is happy, he is happy, everyone happy. And then I’ll tell him that I’m gonna help him change mood by counting to 10, and offer him a hug.  It works sometimes now, but not really all the time, but so far this was the best and efficient way to deal with his tantrum without hurting his pride and wasting too much of our time.

 

Junjun asks

1. Mama explaining to him after he spills his milk on the table.

Junya: I accidentally.
Mama: It’s okay, but you still have to apologize even if you spilled it accidentally.
Junya: When I accidentally spill I accidentally apologize?

2. Junya looking at our family photo when he was still a baby.

Junya: Where is Sakua?
Mama: Sakura was not born yet.
Junya: Where is she?
Mama: She is… hmm… not in this world yet.
Junya: Why?
Mama: Because…hmm because..🤔

(I really don’t know how to answer this question. Mommies, HELP!!!)

 

 

For Sakura

Read Sakura’s 1st month, 2nd month , 3rd month , 4th month , 5th month 6th month , 7th month , 8th month 9th month , 10th month , 11th month , 12th month , 13th month , 14th month , 15th month , 16th month and 17th month here.

 

So another reason why I am getting nervous is because Sakura is slowly walking towards the legitly feared “terrible twos”. She just turned 18 months today, still very much manageable she she still falls for distractions and some coaxing, but having done it before, I know that it is not going to last long.

If the brother doesn’t mellow down, soon I will be handling two kids with their uncontrollable emotions at full blast 😩😩😩.

 

School

After a whole month of school routine, she has settled down pretty nicely. Today when I sent her to school, she stretched her arm out happily to let her teacher carry her. 99% of me feels so so so happy and relieved to see that, but 1% of me was slightly imba HAHAHAH.

Teachers told me that she is a very very easy toddler to handle, it makes me so happy to know that. Next month she will be advancing into toddler class from infant so I hope that she will transition well too!

 

Appetite

Oooomg ok maybe I shouldn’t write about this as not to jinx it. Let’s just say that I have never enjoyed cooking so much and really looking forward to trying new recipe every day. Please please please let it just be this way😭

 

Weaning

Every time I am away from her for my worm out glue (虫出浆糊) travel, the first night was always a nightmare because she would cry the whole night looking for me (mostly my oppai). But then she settles in and usually could almost sleep through by the 3rd night. Perfect way to wean habitual night feeding, right?

Nooooo. I don’t know how to do this. As soon as I come back from the trip, she would wake up multiple times a night again. I tried to hold a bolster tight in front of me so that she couldn’t have access to boobs, but she just cried and cried and be like why mama why can’t I have it.…😭😭😭😭😭 Then the entire effort goes to waste again. It already happened 3 or 4 times now T_T.

She is doing really good in school though, and the teacher said she would only drink milk from a cup with straw, and that sounded perfect to me because I really don’t want to be weaning her only to have her get addicted to milk bottles AND THEN I will have a hard time weaning her off the bottle, like I did with Junya.

 

For Mama

I feel like ten thousand bucks. (Not million yet.)

I have time to go for a long overdue full body massage, I can watch all my favorite TV programs, I can focus on my work without getting interrupted, I can spend some time to concentrate on fixing my back pain instead of just ignoring it and have it go worse and worse, I get to chat with my friends a little more, I even went out for a lunch date with the danna (it felt really weird cuz we haven’t done it in like foreverrrrrrr), and my favorite part – I get to spend more time practicing better cooking skills. When I was busy, I felt so guilty that I had to use all kinds of meal hacks for quick dinners, sometimes compromise on the quality/taste. I’m really enjoying cooking a lot more nowadays.

But… just like I have said on IG a few weeks ago, having more time is like having more money – eventually you get used to it, and it’s never enough. You have 1 million, and you get used to living a 1 million lifestyle, and you wish for more. So time for me, is still never enough. I discovered more TV shows I like to watch, I got interested in how posture affects my back pain and I want to learn in-depth about it, I want to read more news and catch up with forgotten blogs, I want to write more…

It’s neverending. But I am thankful. I am thankful that the kids are well taken care of in school, I am thankful that I have this luxurious hours for myself, I am thankful that I can even be sitting here typing this blog post after fixing myself a good lunch. I am surprised that so far I am even keeping my promise to myself that I would blog twice a week!!! I wrote 8 blog posts in October, and I have already written 5 this month and it’s not even mid month yet!!! (*cues applause*) I feel that I am slowly getting back in shape. Haha.

And I hope I will never forget to be thankful for everything I have now.

 

Share: