Mama Ann says:
We went for gymboree class today, and heck, there were a total of 13 babies!!! Plus the parents, there were too much noise for Ryo to handle. It was also quite warm. He was fussing all the way, and did not participate much in the actitivites as he did the last two times.
Told the staff that I request for smaller class again. How can we waste our money like that? They are suppose to control the class numbers to maximum 10. Lucky I only signed up for 12 classes.
Mama Ann says:
We realise that Ryo is learning at a great speed at this period. Although he cannot speak, other than mama and papa and mum-mum, he shows us he understand by looking at the things we say.
Once I tested him by placing three books on the floor, a Rhymn book, a Shape book and a Farm story book. Then I said square, he'll look for the Shape book, said cock-a-doodle, he'll look for the Farm book, and said Pat-a-cake, and he'll look for the Rhymn book correctly. At least I know my efforts paid off, I've been reading to him everyday for months.
Isaac teaches him shake-your-head everyday now. After a few days of seeing Isaac shake head, he can shake his head too. Now everytime he sees Isaac he will shake his head. Haha.
Mama Ann says:
Everyday I will bring Ryo to the playground downstairs to play, we'll meet many mothers or caregivers and exchange pointers. I realised our baby cultures differ a lot, and apparently the majority of their babies are so easy to care for.
One biggest difference is their babies can sleep through the night without feeding since a few months old. That means the mothers can get to sleep throughout as well. Sob sob sob. Ryo still wakes up for 3 feedings and needs to pat him back to sleep, sometimes up to half an hour!!! I haven have a good night sleep since he was born.
Below is a few of the difference I have discovered so far.
| Tianjin | Spore | |
| Milk | Stops drinking milk from 2 years, all solids | Continues drinking milk until the child himself refuse |
| Food | Eats dumplings, soft rice, noodles, steam egg even at few mths | Cereal or porridge from 6 months, eats larger harder food at later age |
| Crawl | Only crawls on bed | Crawls all over the place |
| Sleep | No sarong, pillow nor pacifier. Able to sleep by himself and thru the night. | Some sleep in sarong with pillow and pacifier. |
| Sun | Sunbathe everyday for vit D to aid calcium absorption | Sun? wat sun? |
We may be rich, we can provide better for our babies, but wat went wrong? How come their babies are so easy to care for? Do you have answers?
Mama Ann says:
I finally stepped out of the house without Ryo and went shopping. I left him with Chenjie. At last I had a breather lest I go mad. It helps that there are two shopping centres near my house, just 5 mins away. Manage to buy some clothes for myself only, haha, cos everytime i will get something for Ryo. Anyway it's quite upsetting that i need to wear L size. I'm already having a liitle love handle. But when I go Espirit, I wear M size. Maybe the China sizes is smaller.
Mama Ann says:
Everytime we came back from Spore, we'll bring some of our local dumplings (salt meat type) for driver Tian. We tried their dumplings and don't like it, cos it's sweet, we thought he'll like our type as he said it's unique. Until few days ago my helper Chen-jie mentioned about some disgusting salty dumpling, then I realised the Tianjin people likes sweet dumpling, while we like the salty type.
So I asked driver Tian today if he finds ours not to his liking, he said yes. Haha. To think we made him eat our disgusting dumplings so many times.Anyway he also gave me some sweet dumpling made by his wife. I tried the dates and red bean types, and like the red bean one. Dates type is too sweet. So this is a case of enforcing what we think people to like what we like.
Ryo says:
See lar, this is the problem when my mama mixes with other mothers around the neighbourhood. She gets influenced into making me 把尿 and interrupting my play every half hour. I want my diaper back. I will foil her plans by not peeing when she makes the shheeee shheeee sound, but will pee when she puts me down. I am going to do my big business on the floor when chen-jie is not around. I think it's working... hee hee
Mama Ann says to Ryo:Alright baby, every evening when I say:" Swinging!!!" you will get really excited. It's the time when you can go to the playground and meet many other children. You will see me get the pram out, and off we go. But when you are on the swing, you are so stone... haha, but I know you like it.
Now you can climb up the steps to the slide, and you sit on my lap when we slide down the twisted slide. I hope you can do it yourself next month.
Mama Ann says:
My helper chen-jie don't come on weekends, so usally Isaac will cook on weekends for us and Ryo. But this weekend he is not around, sob sob, I have to do everything myself, and at the same attend to the sticky baby. Ryo just wants to stick on me like a koala bear all day long. Yesterday I still manage to cook 豆腐羹 (toufu soup) and rice. All meat and vege in, and enough for my lunch and dinner. Same goes for Ryo, had pork and cabbage and sweet potato, excess goes into the fridge till dinner time. I didn't get a wink all day yesterday, rushing to cook when he napped. It's lucky I manage to cope alone.
How did mothers in the past manage with dozens of children? They let them cry, or the babies just don't make a fuss even during separation anxiety period?
Ryo says: Yippee, mama finally inflated the swimming pool they bought long ago last night. I had my bath in it. It is so much bigger than my tub and so much fun. I could hear papa mumbling in the background," Why didn't i have this in the past?"
Mama Ann says:
This is our Ryo watching his favourite YOUR BABY CAN READ again. Sometimes when he sees a baby he gurgles, sometimes when he hears a song, he babbles along. This I caught him babbling along with Row Row Row Your Boat. Doesn't he look like Ah Beng? With his big boss sitting position, a cigar in his mouth and doing the coughing sound???
