The Turkey Man

Nathan babbles these days, as though he’s having conversations with us, pointing and talking in gibberish. His babble is quite perculiar, like a turkey gobbling, so that’s what we call him – the Turkey Man.

Challenging God

Sara: I want a mei-mei (little sister), ‘kay??

Me: Hm, it’s not for any of us to decide.

Sara: *defiant* Why?

Me: God decides. Mommy doesn’t decide, Papa doesn’t decide, certainly you don’t decide.

Sara: *angry now* WHY?

Me: You can take that up with God.

Auntie sniggers. Sara scowls.

I guess some work is needed to improve Sara’s impression of God. She must think He’s a dictator, like her mommy.

PS: I’m not pregnant. It’s just that Danny’s been talking to her and getting her to do his dirty work – his way of nagging me into thinking about it.

They’re cute if I say they are

Sara poses with her Totoro family. From left to right: Sara, O-Totoro (partially hidden), Chu-Totoro and Chibi-Totoro.

Nathan shows us how to play with a balloon while confined to a high chair.

Toddler logic

Overheard this morning.

Sara (to Nathan): You cannot act like a baby anymore. Because you can walk already.

Imperfect parenting

I read somewhere that parenting is the most important job there is, and yet there is no training for it. Sure, you can get some advice about it, but advice still doesn’t prepare you for it. Sometimes, even if you are experienced, there’s always some new thing to stump you, to confuse you, to frustrate you. Parenting, it seems, is not only very important, but very difficult.

This morning, my mother-in-law gave some unwelcome advice. She dispenses it when she feels the need to intervene and I either get faintly annoyed (when in a good mood) or surpress all my resentment and totally ignore it (when in a foul mood). Today, I wasn’t in my best of moods, and the advice she dispensed is one she has repeated time and again. But today, it made sense to me. She was telling me to take it easy with Sara and not yell at her so much.

The past few days has seen me on edge with Sara’s boundary-testing. To be honest, I find myself losing control. I sometimes get so mad and even in mid-yell, I know I am being unreasonable. Probably as unreasonable as she is being at the time. I forget to pick my battles. I find myself getting vengeful and taking away things just so she can feel my anger. I find myself getting petty.

Of course, losing control in front of her grandmother isn’t the smartest thing to do, but to be fair to my mother-in-law, she holds her tongue for as long as she can. I do get angry with her for undermining me unintentionally, but I do realize she is the grandmother. As my mom always says, discipline is my problem, not the grandparents’. 

I know I’m tough on Sara. Being younger and more problematic (i.e. still undetermined food allergies and resulting eczema), Nathan gets a lot of my focus. Sara is acting up not only because she is at THAT age of defining boundaries, but because she is jealous. I know all this and yet I cannot find it in me to rein in my temper when she gets all ridiculous with me. And when everything’s over, I find myself feeling sorry for her. Feeling sorry that I impose on her an adult’s understanding of reasonable behaviour. She is only three after all and what more should I expect? And that’s when I start to overcompensate – I start being really nice and showering her with loads of attention. How’s that for confusing signals to a poor toddler?

And so this morning, when my mother-in-law offered her advice, I decided that she is right. Yelling at Sara isn’t the way. I’ve tried today to not yell, despite the many times she provoked me. I haven’t given up issuing threats (which I do follow through with) – I do think she needs the discipline and the boundaries set – but today I said them calmly, quietly and with an air of seriousness. At one point, when she got me so mad, I remained quiet. She knew I was mad and was a little unnerved by my refusal to say anything.

I’m not sure if all this will help, but I do know I need to change something. Sara still adores me and wants me to be happy with her, but if I continue down this path of being angry at her all the time, I’m not sure what relationship we’ll have in the years to come.

Seen

On a building while whizzing through the streets of Kowloon:

“Cognito College”

You gotta love Hong Kong.