Mummy Are You Happy?

Recently Caleb has taken to asking me this question, "Mummy, are you happy?" Actually he has been asking me this question at least once a day for the past 3 weeks. It all started when we were having a disciplinary session. I can't remember what it was that he did wrong but it was one of those days where I tell him to stop doing something and he purposely repeated the action just to test the boundaries. I had put on my stern voice and warned him that if he continued, he'll be going to the naughty corner. That was when he asked me in a very tiny voice, "Mummy, are you happy?" I was a little taken aback by his question but I was feeling frustrated with him so I told him No and I asked him whether he knew why I was not happy and he said "Because I never listen to you."

So ever since then, he has been asking me this question everyday. Well, actually for the past 3 weeks, Caleb seems to be going through this "test the boundaries" phase. He's been saying "I'm a big boy now and I can do it by myself." And then, he'll do lots of things that he knows he's not supposed to do and then I'll have to step in to discipline him. And each time he does something naughty and he sees the change in the tone of my voice or my facial expression, he'll ask me "Mummy, are you happy?" And he always asks in this tiny, weeny voice. Sometimes, he'll come and sayang my arm as he asks me. It makes it really hard for me to discipline him or I'll tend to soften my approach with him coz I start to worry that I'm giving him very negative vibes and I don't want him to think that I'm not happy with him all the time.

And I've been struggling to decide what kind of answer would be appropriate for me to give him.
Some days I tell him I'm not happy because he's not listening. Some days I think I should give him a more positive answer so instead of saying No, I tell him I'll be happier if he would listen and stop what he is doing.

Now for the last two days, even when he is not doing anything wrong, he'll just turn around and ask me out of the blue "Mummy, are you happy?" On occasions like this, I'll give him a big smile and say "Yes, I'm happy. "
Yesterday, when we were having lunch, again he popped the question and after I told him Yes, I'm happy, I decided to turn the tables around and asked him "Caleb, what about you? Are you happy?" and he said "Yes, I'm happy." So I asked him "Why are you happy Caleb?" And Mr PR said "Coz I'm with Mummy!"

Daddy, thinks that Caleb has got me twirled round his little finger. Especially nowadays when he's trying all the time to assert himself and test the boundaries. He'll do something naughty and then he'll start giving me all kinds of looks. Sometimes he'll give me cheeky smiles, and sometimes I'll get a cheeky reply. I may be amused by him at times but after he does it repeatedly, sometimes, it can get quite frustrating after a while.
These are moments when I think parenting is so difficult and I constantly have to pray for wisdom and patience to discipline him in love.

Warped Conversation

Recently Daddy had a chance to see both Caleb and Nicole playing at Ma-ma's house.
The two kiddos were trying to push a stroller together, each holding on to one side of the handle. Nic had placed a baby in the stroller and amidst all their jostling, the baby doll fell to the ground.
Here's the little conversation that Daddy had with them:

Daddy: Oh, what happened to the baby?
Caleb: Oh... baby fall down...
Nicole: Oh... baby die!

It was really funny for us to see the stark contrast in answers between the two kids. Ya sometimes Yeeyee can get quite drama with the things she says. Time to tone down on the drama factor yeeyee! We don't want the kids to have warped ideas in their heads!

A Spontaneous Moment

Here's Caleb in a spontaneous mood enjoying his music. Somehow he was very tickled with himself going round and round, dancing and laughing away.
See if you can catch his fake laughter towards the end of the video.

Show and Tell

This is a video that I took just before National Day but forgot to upload it. Caleb celebrated National Day in school and came home with a goodie bag. There was a packet of Wang Wang inside and he asked me for permission to eat it. I relented, given that my boy is already past 2 years old. (Yah, me the kiasu Mummy has only given him Baby Bites and not Wang Wang coz the latter has got very high salt content... but I've decided to loosen my reins a little and let him try it. Of course, this will be the occasional treat).
Anyway, as my little boy was savouring his first taste of Wang Wang, he decided that he wanted to do Show and Tell about the biscuit. Show and Tell is a weekly segment in his school curriculum where students are encouraged to bring interesting items or toys from home to show it to their friends and tell them something about their item. I was quite surprised by his introduction coz it sounded so formal. And I thought it was quite funny that he wanted me to thank him for his sharing after that (although his sentence structure was all mixed up. Still I felt that it was a very good attempt on his part to try to string a long sentence on his own without any help.) Good job Caleb!

Spitting Image!

This is really a one-of-a-kind photo.
Check out the T-shirt that Caleb is wearing. This is one of the rare pieces coming out of the Lee family heirloom. Yes, this T-shirt belonged to Daddy many donkey years ago and the picture of the boy printed on the T-shirt is none other than Daddy himself as a toddler. Since the T-shirt fits Caleb to a T, I'm guessing Daddy should be about Caleb's age when the photo was taken. If I'm not wrong, that was the leading technology of Daddy's time, to own a T-shirt with a photo of your face on it.
Anyway, can you see the spitting images between the two of them! Amazing! I couldn't help but laugh when Caleb first wore the T-shirt. They really look so alike, although I must say due to the enhancement of my "beautiful" genes, Caleb looks a teeny weeny bit more handsome then Daddy :)

Footnote from Daddy : We had done a part-by-part detailed survey of Caleb's face before to determine who looks like more and our conclusion was that... Caleb has mummy's eyes, ears, nose, mouth and chin... but somehow when put together, he looks like Daddy!

No More Playing!

Caleb's latest phrase these days is "No More Playing!". He started saying this sometime last week when both he and Daddy were fooling around on his bed. Daddy was tickling him on his tummy (he really loves it and would laugh himself silly!) and then all of a sudden, he just got all serious and put out his hand and told Daddy in a serious tone "Stop! Stop! No more playing!" We were so amused with him coz the tone he used was like he's the Daddy and we're his kiddos. I think he couldn't take Daddy's tickling anymore and wanted a breather so he told Daddy to stop.
Anyway I think the phrase is stuck with him coz now whenever we're playing and he wants to control the situation, he'll start to tell us "No more playing!" then he'll make us all stop and makes sure he gets the upper hand before he continues and tells us "Now, I play with you."

Caleb in his School Uniform

Since Caleb started school, I've been wanting to take a photo of him wearing his very first set of school uniform. But as I mentioned, I've been slacking in taking photos for him so it was only until yesterday morning, that I got a chance to take some photos of him in his school uniform before sending him off to school.

He insisted that I have to take the photos of him squeezing in between his drawer and bed. And this is whilst he's in the midst of eating his breakfast of bread and cheese. He was in quite a bright and chirpy mood so I just let him "zi you fa hui"(aka pose as he wished)

Cheeky Boy!

Realised that I haven't been taking much photos of Caleb recently. Keep thinking that I should before he grows up even more and lose his cuteness! (Actually from a biased mother's point of view, my son will be handsome and cute to me for a long, long time)
Anyway, his classmate celebrated her birthday in school a few days ago and gave out party packs. Caleb got this party mask which he gamely put on and posed for me. I thought he looked quite hilarious in it and was reminded that it's time to whip out my camera!

See Caleb with his cheeky grin!

The Daddy Authority

This week, me and Daddy discovered something about Caleb. He gets really affected when Daddy puts on his stern voice to speak to him. Daddy doesn't need to scream or shout. Just a stern voice and it's enough.

Just the other day Daddy and Caleb were playing and Caleb reached out to fling Daddy's glasses to the floor. Daddy got upset and said very sternly to him "Caleb! I've told you not to do that right!" (Daddy had previously told him not to fling away his glasses.) Well, the reaction was immediate. Caleb froze, kept his head down and looked at the floor and before we knew it, his mouth curved down and tears started streaming down from his face and he said very softly "sorry Daddy". No tantrums, nothing. Just silent tears.
(Wah, I see already, I feel a bit heartache for my son. He really look very poor thing.) Of course Daddy said he quickly softened his tone when he saw how affected Caleb was.

And this morning, I was trying to get Caleb changed and cleaned up to go to school. He wanted to play with his toys and kept turning his face away when I tried to clean his face. I put on my stern voice after a while and told him "Caleb! Mummy needs to clean your face! You're late for school already!" Ha! It had no effect on him. He continued squirming and playing with his toys. Then Daddy stepped in and said sternly "Caleb! Mummy needs to clean your face! Are you ready?! Immediately Caleb stopped squirming, looked cautiously at Daddy and quickly said "Yes." And let me clean him properly.

Me and Daddy were wondering what is it about Daddy that makes Caleb listen to him in an instant and not me??!! It's not like I give him lots of warnings and don't execute out any punishments. Actually, I'm the constant disciplinarian at home. When he misbehaves, I'll issue a warning and if he doesn't heed my warning, he knows for sure he'll go to the naughty corner. And so far, I'm the only one sending him to the naughty corner. Don't think Daddy ever had a chance to do it.
Or maybe it's coz whenever Daddy's home, he plays with him a lot and when there's a sudden change in his tone, it's obvious to Caleb that Daddy means business. We still can't figure it out but whatever it is, at least we know that I can be the daily disciplinarian and Daddy can be my point of escalation if things get out of hand.

Girls! Girls! Girls!

My son has a thing for girls. Maybe it's cos he has lots of female company. The playmates that he has at home are Nicole Jiejie and Natalie Meimei. When we go for cellgroup, the children who are old enough to play with him are Clarisse, Megan and Kimi (all girls again). When we go to church, he gets lots of attention from the big jiejies who will come and hijack him and carry him and steal kisses from him. My only consolation is that I made sure there were some boys in his class when I was choosing a school for him. Yes, I had to make that a criteria coz I'm desperate to get him some male company. Still, in school, he has 2 best friends. One is Jo Kherm (thank God he's a boy!) and the other is Alyssa. He'll come home and tell me how much he likes Alyssa.

Anyway, I have noticed that when we go out, if he sees some children playing, he'll talk about the girls and not the boys. I have a T-shirt which has pictures of matchsticks boys and girls. He'll only point out the girls to me and ask "Mummy, that's a girl right? What's she doing?" I read this book to him called The Enormous Turnip. There was a boy, a girl, an old man, an old woman, and a dog trying to pull up the turnip in the story. Each time I read it, he'll ask "Mummy, where's the girl?"
I have this book which has pictures of a boy, a girl, a man on the cover. When he saw it, he said "I want to see the girl."

We were again reminded of his "thing" for girls on Sunday when we drove past the football field near Yeeyee's house. There were like 30 little boys in soccer jerseys and boots kicking soccer balls in the field. So I asked Caleb...

Mummy: Caleb, did you all the boys? What are they doing?
Caleb: (peers out of the car window) Mummy, what's the girl doing?
Mummy: What girl?? (I only see boys) I don't see any girls.
Caleb: What's the girl doing Mummy?
(we drove past the field and had to do a u-turn, giving us a chance to see the field again. So I tried again.)
Mummy: So Caleb, did you see all the boys?
Caleb: and girl? (he's very persistent!)

Well, end of conversation. I gave up trying to ask him about the boys.
Ok so I should be happy my son has the "right" inclination. But he's a bit young to get started on girls right??!!