D For Debenture

When I was a kid growing up in a small country town, school was pretty basic. I went to "pre-school" a couple of times a week at the ages of 3 and 4, and when I turned 5 I went to "kindergarten" at one of the local primary schools. I stayed at the same school until year 10 and from there went to a public high school because it was the only school in town that offered the last 2 years of secondary school. University was a pretty big shock but I loved school, so I wouldn't have had it any other way. Here in Hong Kong the options seem endless, and deciding where to send Josh has already caused us inconceivable stress.

For those of you who don't know Hong Kong (or for those who do but haven't gotten this far yet), let me break it down for you...

• There are three types of schools here: 1. Local or government schools which teach the local curriculum, in Cantonese with some English. 2. ESF schools, which are partially government funded, entirely English speaking and offer either British curriculum or PYP (primary level preparation for the International Baccalaureate). 3. International schools, which offer a wide range of curricula, languages and subjects, but are also expensive and selective. 
• Children start "Kindergarten" the year they turn 3. Some schools base their intake on the year the child was born. Others base it on a school year or similar August-August type criteria. 
• Waiting lists are standard. Many schools won't accept children onto their waiting list until 12 months before they're due to start. While others will quite happily take applications from birth. I have heard rumours of some parents attaching ultrasound scan photos to application forms, it's that competitive. You generally pay a fee for the privilege of having your child's name on a list, and another fee each year to keep it there. For people who move here with their kids already at school age this can be a huge obstacle. And don't get me started on how much the dragon year baby boom has affected waiting lists...
• Many international schools require parents to pay a debenture, a concept that was entirely foreign to us before we came here. It's basically a "donation" to the school to ensure a place, and the more you can afford to pay, the greater the chances your child will get in. 

So, Josh turns three at the end of this year. Many of his little friends are gearing up for kindy in September. Crazy, laid-back parents that we are, we thought 2 years 8 months was just a little too young for our guy to be heading off to school and we looked into keeping him back a year. I look at all the boys who were born earlier in 2009 and they all seem so much bigger than J. Unfortunately, holding kids back is not something that's encouraged here, and it seems to be a case of sink or swim. At this age it probably isn't such a big deal, but I know from my years as a teacher that it can make a huge difference in primary school. Given the issues with his eyesight we really want to get this right, and if he has the advantage of being one of the older kids in the class, it could really help preserve his confidence. Another option for us was to apply to schools with a different age intake, which we did. We found a couple of schools where he would be right in the middle of the age bracket, and they just happen to start with "reception" at age 4. Perfect, right?

Once we found schools with the right age bracket and good reputations, we then had to narrow them down based on whether or not they offer special needs support, and how many children are in each class. J's ophthalmologist assures us that he should be able to cope with mainstream schooling, but we don't know yet how much support, if any, he'll need. We want to make sure it's at least available before we commit. I'm also really conscious of the fact that many schools think nothing of cramming 30 students into a classroom with one teacher, and expecting him or her to meet the needs of all of them. But I know that even the best teachers find this very difficult. I don't want J to get lost in the system, so small class sizes are crucial in my opinion. 

After taking all of this into consideration, we had two great schools on our list. This is when we encountered enormous waiting lists and that dirty word, debenture. One school requires a minimum $100, 000 HKD debenture which depreciates over 7 years, for each child. You only pay the debenture when you accept a place at the school. But there are limited places available, and those who can pay more have a better chance of getting their child in to that school. We don't have $100, 000 just lying around, but we could scrape it together (i.e. sell the house or a couple of kidneys), and we would, we just hate that we have to. The second school on our list appeals to me more because it's different, and it seems like it would be a really exciting place to be, as a student or a teacher. There's no waiting list as such, you just have to prove that your child will add to the "diversity" of the school, but the debenture is $400, 000 per child... 

In the meantime, Josh needs something to occupy him, so we have been looking at kindergartens. We applied to two schools with fairly good links to great primary schools, and we attended "playdates" (i.e. interviews) at both this week. We weren't really sold on either to be honest, and I kind of knew as soon as I walked in that neither of them were the right fit - occupational hazard I guess. So, we've decided that since we're unable to decide what to do, we'll do nothing. He's TWO after all! We'll keep him where he is, where he's happy and it's familiar and they're not asking us to hand over our life-savings, or lack thereof, and we'll wait and see what we get offered. Some families don't have that luxury and some big changes need to be made to the system, soon.

There's always homeschooling I guess!

Second Time Around

You know all those things I said I'd never do again? All the mistakes I made and the lessons I learned the first time? Well... I'm doing it all again - rocking Charlie to sleep, giving him a dummy, carrying him around wherever I go when he absolutely refuses to sleep, feeding him in bed till we both fall asleep, and sitting around all day just enjoying his company instead of getting off my butt (which apparently did not receive the memo that we are no longer pregnant) and doing something resembling exercise/housework. I've given myself permission to do it all over again because I know what I'm doing this time, I know we'll end up with some bad habits and I'm ok with that. It's all about survival at the moment and if I have to take the path of least resistance to get through the next 6 months, so be it.

I read through book after book trying to find answers when J was smaller, and when I realised that none of them answered any of my questions, I tossed them all out. Some were a little helpful, but despite the one-size-fits-all solutions offered, my child just didn't comply. When Charlie came along he surprised us by being a comparatively easy baby and I didn't feel the need to turn to "experts" for advice. Then he hit the baby version of menopause - "the 6 week change" as Robin Barker calls it - and started napping for no more than 20 minutes at a time, several times a day. It was all too familiar...

I didn't have much of a plan in the beginning, I just knew I wanted to do things differently the second time around, I was determined, perhaps somewhat naively, to nip it in the bud. When Charlie went through "the change" I had no choice but to go back to the books. I borrowed one from a friend called "Sleep Sense" and it really did make sense. There were a few new, and genuinely helpful, pieces of advice in there but it was all just a bit too familiar. Again I was left asking, "but what do I do when...?" So I've decided that, for now, rather than trying to find one philosophy, one solution to all my problems, I'm going to do whatever the hell feels right at the time. At least once a day we practice attachment parenting, and Charlie naps on my chest or in the Ergo. Other times I channel the Baby Whisperer and take a firm but fair approach. Then there are times when he needs some serious Gina Ford style wrangling to go the f##k to sleep...  At least I'm consistent in my inconsistency, and I now have a 3 month old who goes to bed at 6pm every night and sleeps for 12 hours. I'm always going to stress about whether or not I'm doing the right thing, and I will question myself every step of the way but that's just one more thing the books can't help me with.

A friend told me, before Charlie arrived, that I'd appreciate baby number 2 all the more for the simple fact that, unlike with the first child, I wouldn't end up resenting the disruption to our lives. I wasn't sure I got what she meant at the time but now I do. Our lives were already chaos, and Charlie fit right in, like he was meant to be here, and we simply carried on. What has struck me the most is that the first 3 months of his life have gone so much faster than Josh's first 3 months (which dragged on FOREVER!). We got to the 12 week mark, looked at each other and said, "you know what, that wasn't so bad." And we gave ourselves a little pat on the back for making it through. There are still tough days, really really long days, and days when I have no clue what I'm doing, but unlike the first time around, I know they won't last. And there's a good chance that when Charlie is a strong and independent little man, I'll long for the days when he needed me wrapped around him to fall asleep. So I'm going to keep doing what I'm doing, making those mistakes, setting us up for bad habits, because I know that, if in making those mistakes again we risk history repeating itself, we'll be ok. Because we survived the last two years and we have a pretty awesome 2 year old to show for it.

Zzzzzzzzzz!

Sleep. When you're a parent of small children it becomes an obsession. When I'm awake I'm structuring our day to make sure both boys are stimulated and fed enough (but not too much) to make sure they are perfectly worn out and drowsy at night. When I'm asleep I'm usually concentrating very hard on staying asleep, and praying that I get enough to make it through the next day. Anything that disturbs the balance - a fever, a nightmare, the dog, a thunderstorm, a f**king jackhammer in the daytime, is met with an exhausted rage that would make me cry if only I had the energy. Quite simply, I live, eat and breathe sleep. After 12 weeks of getting 4 consecutive hours at the most, I am barely functioning, and definitely not "firing on all cylinders," as my husband so eloquently puts it. When anyone asks me how I am my response is usually, "so freaking tired." Sleep has become such a precious commodity that if someone offered me a choice between a gift of diamonds, or 24 hours, by myself in a hotel, I would take the sleep without giving it a second thought. It's boring I know, but I cannot think or talk about anything else until I get some sleep.

The old "sleep when the baby sleeps" goes out the window when you also have a toddler, and if there are less than 3 adults in the house, the chance to catch up evaporates faster than my patience. For something so essential to survival, I cannot believe that babies are born not knowing how to sleep. It's not rocket science kiddies! They don't know that they need it and as their parents you need to help them, for your sake as much as theirs. It's a delicate balancing act, and what worked for one kid might have the opposite effect on the other. So my days and nights have been spent tweaking things ever so slightly looking for the magic combination. Charlie doesn't like to be swaddled, and he sleeps better when the fan is on instead of the air-con. We need to give him a dream-feed, something we never did with Josh, and he prefers to go to sleep with white noise in the background, rather than music. It also helps when I am absolutely shattered and don't hear him fussing. I've been getting him up and popping a boob in his mouth whenever he stirred, pre-empting a crying fit which would wake everyone else, but it turns out I didn't need to. Last night we got the balance right, we found the holy grail, and the little guy slept for 12 solid hours! I slept through every whimper and grunt, and when he was done, Charlie just carried on sleeping. The urge to feed woke me before he did (they don't call it a let-down for nothing...) but I know now that he doesn't need to eat as often as I was trying to feed him. I'd be cross with myself for not figuring it out sooner if I wasn't so overjoyed. I feel like a new woman, like I could take on the world. I know there will always be bad nights, and tonight could very well be one of them. If I have learned anything from this parenting gig, it's that things always change just when you think you've got them figured out. But I have seen the light at the end of the tunnel.

It's official - Charlie can sleep through. Now we just need to convince his big brother to do the same...

For those of you in the same boat, you are not alone. This is old, but it still makes me smile - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xtcB457jqQ

The Terrible Twos - A Lost Post

I've never liked the term "the terrible twos." It didn't seem fair to me to mark every two-year-old in existence with the same label, especially not one that implied that they were fairly unpleasant little humans during a certain period. Whenever I have boasted over the last 12 months how delightful my gorgeous son was, I was generally met with a smug friend or relative saying "just wait till he's two..." I wanted to punch them for implying that my little man was capable of being something as horrific as their own child was at that point evolving into. I felt like I had done my time with J in the early days. Of course it wasn't his behaviour that caused us grief, but the reflux, his adamant refusal to sleep, and the mummy blues, that overshadowed the first 6 months of parenthood. When we came out the other side of it all and celebrated J's first birthday almost a year ago, I felt like we had all miraculously survived a great trauma. I wanted to believe we would be spared that period known as "the terrible twos" mostly because, like a lot of parents, I found it impossible to believe that my son could be anything less than adorable.

He's always been feisty and impatient, and he shows a determination that equals that of both his parents combined. Things have shifted lately as he's realised his own strength and become better able to express himself. He's realised he has options, and that has been the root cause of all of our problems. A few weeks ago I asked him to do something simple. I can't remember what exactly but he turned to me, looked me in the eye and said, very emphatically, "no." It wasn't so much that he was saying no because he didn't want to do it, it was that he was choosing to say no because it was what I wanted him to do. I recognised that look he gave me, I've seen that furrowed brow, the thundercloud over the head before, and I'm sure later in life he'll have the pulsing blue vein above his eyebrow too - it's a family look, we all get it from time to time, and I knew I'd be seeing a lot more of it. We were entering a new "phase."

I used to look at parents of children behaving badly with a mixture of sympathy and judgement. I couldn't help but feel that they were responsible for the way their child was behaving, that in some way, some flaw in their parenting had led to that meltdown/tantrum/act of violence. Now I know better. Toddlers have very little impulse control. They can't help but scream when their baby brothers are asleep upstairs. They feel cross that they can't get what they want and they haven't learned positive ways to express it. "Hugging not hitting" has become a mantra in our house, and while most of the time we manage to remind J that he'll get more attention if he asks for a cuddle when he's cranky, sometimes he simply exercises his right to choose and still smacks Mummy in the mouth anyway. I was dreading this phase, because deep down I did know it would come eventually, but it's not as bad as I thought. My dread was based on my own impatience and the fear that I would not be able to respond appropriately when he started kicking and screaming in the middle of the supermarket - I was afraid I would also lose it when my buttons were pushed (and believe me, he knows how to push my buttons!). There have been times when it's been a battle to control him, he is just so big and heavy that it's almost physically impossible to restrain him, and I have been worried that he would hurt himself, or someone else. But for the most part I've been calm and not at all as flustered by his behaviour as I imagined I would be. Maybe it's because I see him the other 75% of the time as a sweet and happy little boy, or because I know the tantrum will pass, or maybe it's both, but it really is ok.

As a two year old J has been a pleasure to watch. The things he says, the way he responds and reacts to everything around him, his energy and the sheer joy he gets out of the simplest things, the sudden realisation that he is a "big boy" now and his quest for independence, his sense of humour and new level of awareness of the world he inhabits, it's all amazing and wonderful to us. There are bad times, daily, but they are bearable because the good times are so good. "This too shall pass," is our other mantra, and it's helping us realise that the twos aren't so terrible after all.

Night Terrors

For the last four nights in a row we have been woken at least once by a small person demanding attention. The first night J woke up screaming, twice. It was so unusual that we were both awake instantly, and J did get our full attention. A few nights later and we're a little more relaxed, but no less perplexed about the cause of J's nighttime angst. D has better hearing than me, he sleeps closest to the door and he isn't attempting to grow another human being at the moment so he's usually the first out of bed, but on Saturday night I was on my own. At approximately 11.45pm I was woken by a shout - "Mummy!?" It wasn't frightened or frantic, and there were no tears, but it was persistent, as if he just needed to be sure I was there. Dragging my 36 + weeks pregnant body out of bed takes some serious effort at the best of times, but after being woken from a deep and dreamy sleep it's almost impossible. I lumbered my way into J's room and found him sitting up in bed as if it was first thing in the morning. He turned to me and said, "hop in Mummy's bed?" hopefully. "No," I replied, wearily. "Mummy hop in the cot?" Again, full of hope and optimism. "No," I replied, wearily and emphatically, "not even if I wanted to."

In his entire life J has only slept in our bed a handful of times, and only when he's been sick or we've been on holidays and had no other option. Anytime we've ever had to have him in our bed none of us have had what you might call "quality sleep" so it's been easy to not make a habit out of it. I figured he might want to get into bed with us in a few weeks time when he realises that the new baby is sleeping with Mummy and Daddy, but this recent and sudden departure from "sleeping through" has taken me completely by surprise. 

On Saturday night I was determined not to give in. I pictured myself and my husband living separate lives for the next 5 years as we each took turns to sleep with one or more of the children, and I stayed resolutely outside of the cot, and kept J safely inside of it. I rubbed his back, tickled his face and tried not to nod off with my head resting on the side of the cot. Any time he sensed that I was about to leave, or fall asleep standing up, J would call out, "Mummy?" again and attempt to strike up a conversation. Eventually I realised that neither of us were getting any sleep anyway, and carried him into my bed, along with Dorothy the Dinosaur, and J's constant companion Bottomley Potts, a long-limbed stuffed dalmatian. After an hour of having him toss and turn beside me, bumping his head on the bedhead, chatting to Dorothy and attempting to sleep horizontally, I realised that he was actually, despite what he believed, going to be more comfortable in his own bed and I carried him back in there. He surrendered pretty easily and I didn't hear from him again, but I still woke up the next morning feeling like crap, and angry at the world in that way that only parents of small children can comprehend.

As I said, it's only been four nights but to add insult to injury my husband has recently started snoring... In our 8 years of living together he has never been a snorer and I have no idea why he's started now but it's making me think separate bedrooms for married couples aren't such a bad idea. It's not just the snoring that is the issue - It's the fact that I can't wake him to get him to stop snoring without sending him into cardiac arrest. Even in the deepest sleep he is poised and ready for D-Day. The slightest movement from my side of the bed has him reaching for the car keys and the hospital bag. It usually takes him a minute or two to absorb what I'm telling him when I say, "I'm not in labour, I just want you to shut the f**k up and sleep on your side, or I'm going to smother you with this pillow." Try getting back to sleep after that.

So J might only wake once or twice but when you add at least one episode of snoring, a few trips to the bathroom and one or two dog-related disturbances to the mix every night, there's not a lot of restful and restorative sleeping going on. I have to wonder just what it would take to sleep soundly for 10 hours, and I mean really soundly? And do you hand in your rights to a full night's sleep the minute you decide to start a family? I don't want to know the answer to this, but will I ever sleep well again? I started this blog all that time ago with a post about sleep deprivation. It was an obsession for such a long time, and no doubt will be again as we throw ourselves into life with a newborn. But we've had it pretty good for a while now and I had forgotten just how very bad it could be. I don't know if J is entering a new phase, if the universe is trying to prepare me for what lies ahead, or if I simply bragged one too many times that my child was a brilliant sleeper, but I am longing for the day when I will again wake up when my body has decided I have had enough sleep, and not when someone else does.

Growing Up

When I found out I was pregnant I made a mental list of all the things I would need to do before baby numero due arrived. Apart from spending as much quality time with J as possible, making him less dependent on me was high on my list. I was determined not to have 2 kids in nappies and I really wanted him to be better at feeding himself (or at least more willing to). Then I had an attack of mummy guilt - not only would I be shaking up his tiny world and inflicting a sibling upon him, I was also planning on hurrying him up on the whole growing up thing. I asked myself, was it really fair to expect him to give up his bottles and dummies simply because they were an inconvenience to me?! I decided I wasn't going to do anything drastic while I was working and chose to leave toilet training and dinnertime battles off the agenda for a few months. Partly because I wanted to be able to give those issues my full attention but also because I wanted to delay the inevitable just as much as I imagined my son did.

Then a remarkable thing happened. In just a few short months J has gone from putting two words together to making sentences and "talking" about concepts like friends and colours, and would you believe it, he also chats away in Cantonese... His memory is outstanding and he has started to make choices and clearly express what he wants, and really clearly express what he doesn't want. Just last week he showed the first signs of an imagination as he hopped in a toy car and waved goodbye, telling me with great delight that he was going to Mui Wo. He has a great sense of humour and he tells us when he's "shy" or "scared". The very fact that he understands what what those words mean astounds me. He even takes himself off to his little time-out corner when he knows he's been naughty, I mean, how do I discipline a kid that does that? This morning he told me he needed to do a wee and motioned for me to help him to sit on the toilet (nothing came of it but I was still pretty darn impressed by his initiative!). In other words, without very much input from me at all, my little boy is growing up. And very quickly too.

I admit there was that initial thought that perhaps I might have some work to do to encourage my little man to be more independent, but not a great deal of what has happened lately was the result of a conscious choice on my part. We wanted to capitalise on his self-awareness so when he started telling us he needed a nappy change, we bought a potty and we talked about what it was for, but we haven't exactly been proactively teaching him how to use it. I tried pretty hard to enforce some manners on the kid but everything beyond "please" and "thank you" he learned on his own. Maybe I'm not giving us enough credit. I'm sure we've done something right at some point to lead our child to this newfound independence and verbal ability, but to be completely honest, I'm not really sure what.

Despite my son's obvious prodigiousness, there will need to be some active changes made over the coming months, purely for my own convenience. Once the baby arrives I won't have time to cut each piece of J's toast into 2x2cm squares and he may need to learn how to eat a whole banana (as opposed to having it peeled and sliced for him), but I figured since he's practically toilet-trained himself I'll let him keep the bottles and dummies for now. He may very well decide next month that he doesn't need them anymore (a long-shot at best) as he seems determined to grow up with or without my encouragement. It's a bittersweet mixture of overwhelming pride and sadness, watching my baby turn into a boy, but I'm beyond thrilled that I'm about to do it all again. Does that mean I'm growing up too?

The First Cut is the Deepest

When my nephew was a baby, about 18 months old, he had this strip of hair that was always in his eyes. It drove both of us crazy. So I cut it one night when I was left on my own with him, just that tiny piece at the front. His mother was furious, she'd never cut his hair before, ever. I couldn't see what the big deal was back then, it was 10 years ago, and I thought I had done the kid a favour. The mother in question went on to shave the little guy's head a few months later, which baffled me even more.

But, a few months ago as I stood in front of J, a pair of scissors in my hands and tears in my eyes, I finally got it - that first haircut is a big step. J hardly had any hair for the first 11 months of his life and when it did grow it grew fast and in patches. When it came time to trim the few errant strands that he did have, I was heartbroken and insisted on doing it myself. I kept those few precious locks in a little envelope in his baby album, for no one's sake but my own. Of course, it was a complete hatchet job and we had to take him to a real hairdresser a few days later, but it was important to me that I could say that I had given him his first haircut. We went along to a small salon where they had a ride-on car and TV screens to distract the little ones and we took photos. It was all over in a matter of minutes and he looked like a new kid. Not only that, he looked like a little boy. To me that first haircut was like a rite of passage - it marked the start of toddlerhood. My little boy was no longer a baby. It was also the end of my haircutting days...

J now has quite a bit of hair. It's growing thick and fast and evenly, all over his little head, finally. He's had a couple of haircuts since that first one, and he's hated every minute of it. He thrashes about and cries and clings onto one or both of us. The last one was such a disaster it looks like I did it myself.

Here the local Chinese believe that if you shave a baby's head, he or she will be blessed with thick lustrous locks their whole life. There are a lot of babies getting around with buzz cuts, even little girls, and I find it a little disturbing. The little baldies look like mini prison escapees, or like they've had a nasty head lice infestation. Apart from the whole lifetime of enviable hair thing, there are advantages to taking to the little one's head with the clippers. With his perpetually snotty nose and bad, homestyle 'fro, J's a set of scabbed knees away from looking like no one loves him. At least he's robust and healthy looking, so it's obvious that he's well fed, if not well groomed.

I'm on this topic tonight because we've been delaying another haircut. Part of me wants to let it grow out until it's a mass of unruly blonde locks, but I do like a short back and sides. I'm sure no matter how I cut his hair, at some point J will want to shave his head, or dye it blue or something equally outrageous just to scare his mother, but for now, while I can't stop him from growing up so quickly, I can keep his hair out of his eyes.

Typhoons and Tantrums

Well, typhoon season is upon us. Of course I had plans for this week and ended up having to go into town during torrential rain and winds of 40-60km/hour. The "Typhoon Signal 3" was hoisted which basically meant that it was really wet and really windy. When I arrived into Central on the ferry yesterday the rain was coming down in sheets and the wind was blowing it sideways. My umbrella was rendered useless as soon as I stepped out of the shelter provided by the ferry, and I was soaked through by the time I got into a cab less than 10 metres away. A "T8" is generally a bit more serious and everything shuts down, but during the T3 it was business as usual - it just made getting a taxi a bit more challenging than usual. Not to mention the challenge of finding "indoor fun" for a very "outdoor" kind of boy, as playgroups, kindergartens and nursery schools close down at T3.

Call me crazy, but I actually love this kind of weather. It's still hot, and the 99.9% humidity makes going outside feel like you're stepping into a sauna, but the rain does cool things down just so slightly. I also love the unpredictability of it all, and the fact that we all get a day off if it's really windy. It's also a great reminder that we're a long way from home. I love the jostling of umbrellas on busy streets, the gumboots under work suits, the clarity of the sky before the rain sweeps in and obscures everything. I love lying in bed and listening to the wind howl and the rain pelting the window, and knowing I'm tucked up safe, sound and dry. I have a deep respect for the awesome power of nature, and I know that freak weather can be so incredibly dangerous, but for us, in this city that's so well prepared for the annual typhoons, it's simply a fascinating part of life in the tropics. Oddly enough, it's one of the few things I love about this place.

When I was teaching, we could always tell when there was a typhoon on the way, because the kids would get a little bit nutty. There'd be a bit more noise in the hallways, a few more fights, lots of general silliness, and they'd all be buzzing almost perceptibly as we waited to hear whether or not we'd all get to go home early. J wasn't bothered by this recent bout of inclement weather at all. He still insisted on going out for his morning walk yesterday, and he protested quite loudly when we had to turn around and come home after we both got drenched by a passing storm. He reminded us all day today that we hadn't yet been to Mui Wo for playgroup, and didn't understand the concept of "cancelled due to weather"... We have had more tantrums than usual this week, and I'm hoping that I can blame the weather and not a new phase. Last night he insisted on feeding himself dinner, which meant eating shepherd's pie with his hands. Battles like those held regularly at our dinner table make yesterday's typhoon seem like nothing more than a stiff breeze in comparison.

Here are some photos from previous year's storms...

If you're a bit of a weather nerd like me check out the Hong Kong Observatory's great typhoon information page.

Talking the Talk

Before I had a kid of my own, I used to watch the interactions between my friends and their babies with utter bewilderment. I never understood how they managed to translate their little one's babble into discernible conversation. Baby would say something like, "blah, blah, goo goo gah!" and their delighted parents would exclaim, "yes, sweetie, Einstein's theories are perplexing to the uneducated mind, how perceptive you are!"

Now I know how that ability to translate seemingly meaningless babble is developed, because I do it myself every day. When J first started saying words other than Mama and Dada, we made a list of all of his "words", for posterity. There were only a handful of words on there, and we didn't add to it regularly like we should have, but since he seems to say a new word every day these days, we thought we'd make a new list. There were over 60 "words" on there. Granted, most of them are not recognisable to anyone but us, but it is still an attempt on his part to communicate. Watching him transform from a tiny, helpless baby to a confident, talkative and very cheeky toddler has been pure joy, and he amazes me every day. He still babbles incessantly and sometimes looks at us quite seriously, as if he believes he's saying something quite profound. But for most of the basics there is very clearly a series of sounds that signify specific objects or actions. "Car" and "Bath" are the more obvious ones, but a few words/sounds can have a variety of meanings depending on the tone and context. "Num Num" can mean dummy or dinner, while "Mi Mi" can be milk, Mummy, please, or excuse me, depending on the tone and where he puts the emphasis. Every time he says it, we know what he means by the way he says it - it's almost as if he's speaking Cantonese sometimes. When he can't express himself with words, he's very good at using gestures and body language. I was taking too long to get ready yesterday and while I was sitting down putting my shoes on, J grabbed me by the shirt and tried to pull me up - his way of saying "let's go!"

Even though I know what J is saying, most of the time, I still don't have a clue what my friend's kids are saying. It's like we've all developed these intimate mini-languages in our own homes, that are unique to us. I'm always really conscious of it when we're with friends who don't have kids, and I try not to make a fuss or translate for them what J is saying. Partly because some of them simply don't care, but also because I'm aware that they're convinced he's not saying anything at all and that we're just plain crazy. I know that for a fact, because I once thought the same thing!

The experts say that the best way to teach your kids to use words is to speak to them, all day, every day. We do talk to J a lot and we also read to him a few times a day. He often watches our mouths, fascinated, and you can almost hear his little mind ticking over as he processes the different words and the way we're forming them. My niece A, who is two and a half, has a very sophisticated vocabulary, and it's sometimes easy to forget how young she is. When I was looking after her she was asking me for something that I wasn't prepared to hand over. I tried to make a deal with her, eat your vegetables then you can watch TV. It didn't work, because she may have been able to pronounce the word "negotiate" but she couldn't yet understand the concept. Her parents have always spoken to her in a way that's very respectful of her intelligence, and it's paid off in her ability to clearly express herself.

I think all kids deserve to be spoken to as if they're on the same level as the grown ups around them. This doesn't mean being open and honest with them about things they're too young to understand, but there's no need to limit the words you use (unless you're prone to dropping the f-bomb) or "dumb it down." Our little guy is a parrot and will repeat everything he hears, which can be a very bad thing, but it can also be used to teach kids words that are bigger than they are. Yesterday I told J he was handsome, and wouldn't you know it, he said "handsome" straight back. My nephew went through a phase where he was using the F word in context, but he pronounced the F as a P (as in "puck you, Aunty B"). He stayed with us for a week when he was 4 and instead of telling us to puck off, by the end of it he was saying everything was "wonderful." It really showed me how important it is to give kids some credit and to speak to them as you would want to be spoken to. One thing that has always driven me crazy is baby talk - when parents put on a babyish voice to speak to their kids. You know what I mean; there's nothing worse, or more insulting to a child's intelligence than hearing a grown adult say something along the lines of, "Mummy wummy's gonna go get your binki, my widdle bubby, cos it's time for your nigh nighs..." Urgh! I once tutored an 8 year old who spoke like that all of the time and it drove me mad. She was the only child of older parents and I think it was her way of manipulating them. Her parents indulged her - they thought it was cute - but it turned my stomach so I simply refused to play along. Eventually she started speaking normally when I was around and proved herself to be quite a smart, sweet kid. There's definitely no baby talk in this house!

J has already proven to be quite the chatterbox, which is great, and while he's not yet speaking three languages or discussing quantum physics, I'm fairly confident that his language skills are on track. If he's still asking me for his "nhack" (snack) or a ride on the "hing" (swing) when he's 12 then I might start to worry. But for now I'm enjoying the little ways he has of talking to me, and the fact that his favourite word is "Mama".

If you're at all interested in what your kids should be saying and when, have a look at the following resources:
Baby Centre, Zero to Three, What To Expect, Speech Pathology Australia, Child Development Institute,
and Vocal Development

Forward Thinking

I've hit the books once again. I know I swore off reading any more how-to-parent books but that was before I found myself surrogate mummy to a two year old. I decided that dealing with such an important (and challenging) period in a child's life is not something I want to learn about on the job, I need to be forewarned and as prepared as I can be, even if it frightens the living daylights out of me. So I turned to my good friend Robin Barker once again, as she guided me through every aspect of J's first year so brilliantly (with the exception of teething, as she is so totally wrong about that!).

Robin talks a lot about outcomes-based parenting, and what she says, with more than a hint of disdain, has really got me thinking. So many of us are focused on doing things a certain way now because we want to ensure a good outcome in the future. Or we want to avoid certain scenarios later on. There's nothing wrong with that, according to Robin, but at times we bend ourselves over backwards trying to achieve something when it really would be easier to just think about what we all need right now. I've been hellbent on getting J to eat a variety of really healthy, tasty foods, and I struggle when all he wants is toast and bananas. I thought I was instilling good eating habits, for the future, when in reality, he'll probably end up spending a good portion of his early adulthood eating cold pizza and beer. I haven't really considered whether or not he actually wants to eat vegetables at the time that I'm sitting down to force-feed them to him. I also get really frustrated when he doesn't eat very much, and I want him to finish his meal, mostly because I don't want him to be hungry later, but also because I was always made to finish everything on my plate when I was a kid. It had nothing to do with whether or not I was actually hungry anymore, and I can't believe I'm doing the same thing to my son, without even questioning why.

Sleep is another of those areas where we want good outcomes, because it's so crucial for everyone's sanity. But the way in which we achieve that is different for everyone. My niece has slept with her parents since she was seven months old, and most nights goes to bed when they do. I've insisted that J goes to bed every night at 7.30 and sleeps alone. Both very different methods but each has its own merits and works for those involved. I was worried that if we let him sleep in our bed there'd come a time when we'd want him out of there and that would be fairly traumatic for all of us. But I think the truth is that most kids who do sleep with their parents (as standard practice rather than as an emergency, out of sheer desperation, arrangement) just accept that it's time to move on at some point. A lot of Asian families all sleep in the same bed, or the same room at least, and it's very European for the kids to stay up as late as the adults. I'm willing to bet that anyone who practices either or both of these sleep habits doesn't think twice about what it might mean in the future. Now we're at a point where J can't sleep in our bed. He gets very excited and wants to play, even if it's 3am. Sometimes in emergencies, out of sheer desperation, I have brought him into our bed, and after playing with my eyelashes and sticking his finger up my nose for twenty minutes, he usually ends up falling asleep as soon as I return him to his cot.

School is another aspect of our children's lives that we agonise and torture ourselves over, because we worry about the outcome. I blame the fact that schools now have waiting lists a mile long, and there's intense pressure to choose a good high school and send off your application as the obstetrician is cutting the cord; even then it's too late sometimes. Here in HK there are so many different options for schooling that a number of parents I know have lost sleep over where to send their children for Kindergarten. You have to consider not only the curriculum, teaching styles, class sizes etc, but things like whether or not they offer Mandarin, which primary schools they feed to, if they offer a bus service and how long the daily commute will be. Last week I also learned that some of the local schools may not even have a Kindy class some years if they don't have enough kids enrolled - just one more thing to plan for. The scary thing is that these decisions have to be made for two-year-olds! Imagine what it's like when they get to high school! J's only 15 months old and we're already talking about it at length, worrying that the wrong decision at this stage will have a great impact on his academic future. When I take a step back and really think about it, I've realised we really can't go wrong when it comes to choosing a kindergarten. I don't want to diminish any of the agony our friends have been through in making this decision; those early years of school are important, but they're mostly about having fun, making new friends, and getting into the habit of going to school and being away from Mummy and Daddy for a few hours every day. If we pick the "wrong" kindy or J doesn't get into a good primary school, we'll move, or we'll do better next time. It's not like a bad kindergarten is going to set him up for a lifetime of failure. What's important is that we are involved and caring parents, and when I get some more sleep that's exactly what I'll be. I hope one day, J will get into a good high school and be a great student, but I'm resolving to worry about that later.

I'll admit that I have been an outcomes-obsessed parent until now, and it's a tough habit to break. Every day we do things with the future in mind. From buying a shoebox in the backwaters of Hong Kong so one day we can afford our dream home in Aus, to bringing in the washing because it might rain later, we think about the future, short-term and long, all the time, sometimes without a good reason for it. I know it's important, when you have kids, to plan ahead and consider the consequences of your actions and parenting decisions, but sometimes I think I'm making mistakes and missing out on what's happening now. And it changes so, so quickly. I'm going to start trying to focus more on the day-to-day stuff and what's right for J, and us, right now - with a little bit of consideration for further down the track. I'm going to start with dinner tonight: Vegemite on toast all round!

A Word About Sleep

Today, if I can muster the energy, I want to talk about sleep. I'm so sleep deprived and delirious at the moment that it's the number one thing on my mind. Sleep, and lack of it, seems to be the biggest preoccupation of most parents. I've written about it a few times (see here), usually when I've been desperately tired, but always with the hope that one day soon, things would get better. Now I'm starting to think that I'm going to have to wait several years before I get enough consecutive nights of sleep to feel remotely human again. After 15 months I'm worn out, strung out and feeling at least 10 years older than I am.

Before J was born I had read somewhere that almost immediately after birth, most babies fall into a deep, sound sleep for several hours. I went into labour late at night, about 10 minutes after getting into bed after a long day. I was awake for almost 24 hours when J finally arrived so I was looking forward to this extended nap. It didn't happen and if anything, he seemed energised by the whole experience, and didn't sleep properly for several weeks. Sleep, and how to get more of it, became an obsession for me. There are so many books on the subject and everyone seems to have a different opinion; from hardcore teach-to-sleep from day one to attachment/baby lead, "no routine is the best routine" regimes, I researched it all. I read dozens of books and spoke to everyone we knew who had kids that seemed to sleep well, but most of the techniques just didn't fit. J had colic and reflux and would go from being sleepy to overtired and unable to sleep in a heartbeat. He hated being put down, and only ever napped in our arms. I knew we had to do something but struggled to find a way to make it work for all of us, and sometimes under exceptional circumstances I found myself doing things I never thought I would. I've never been comfortable with the idea of controlled crying, but there were nights when I was beside myself with fatigue and nothing could soothe my little man, that I had to leave him in the cot and spend 5 minutes outside.

In trying to establish a routine that worked for all of us we made some mistakes and battled a baby who simply didn't want to rest when we wanted him to. Teaching him to go to bed at the same time every night and put himself to sleep, in the gentlest way possible, when he was six months old made a world of difference, but it certainly wasn't the end to our problems. The biggest lesson we've learned over the last 15 months is that every time we thought we had it figured it out, it was always very short-lived, and things would inevitably change again. We'd have a few good nights and then he'd get sick, or start teething, or wet the bed; there was always something.

When J cut back to one nap a day and was for the most part "sleeping through" we really did think we had it figured out once and for all. This week proved just how very wrong we were. Lately we've had enough decent nights of sleep to realise what a difference they can make to our general wellbeing. On the other hand we've also become quite attached to staying in bed all night, and reverting back to bad nights has come as a bit of a shock. After 4 or 5 wake up calls on Friday night, which ended at 6am with J and I in the cot together, we were hoping for a better night on Saturday night. It wasn't to be... He howled every time I left the room and fought sleep for about an hour. At 8pm I gave up and came downstairs, leaving him shouting in protest. That lasted about 15 minutes and after he finally passed out exhausted, so did I. The rest of the night followed a similar pattern to the night before, except Sunday started at 5am and he didn't go back to sleep. When I dragged myself out of bed for the seventeenth time I thought to myself how much it felt like the days when we had a newborn, only now I don't have hormones pushing me through each day, and somehow staying in my pyjamas till 4pm and napping in the middle of the day feels less appropriate than it did 15 months ago.

We had a couple of good nights earlier in the week but daytime naps were then the issue. He either refused to go down without a fight or only slept for a short time. I was worried, and still am a little, that this was going to be the end of naps during the day. Thankfully, by exhausting him in the mornings, I got the naps back to normal but the last two nights he's had me up half a dozen times! I have a mental checklist I go through each time he gets up: dummy, nappy, temperature, position in the bed; and if all of those are fine, I leave him to it. But I still have to get up and check far too often every night! I can't wait for D to get back on Tuesday and take over for a night or two.

On the upside, when he is awake during the day, J is a lot of fun to be around. And the poor sleep hasn't affected his sense of humour or sweetness, as much as it's affected mine. I think a combination of four new teeth and separation anxiety are the culprits behind the disrupted sleep this week, but if this carries on much longer I may need to resort to drugging one or both of us to restore some form of sanity to the household...

Double Trouble (But So Much Love!)

The Monster's back... As in the Baby Monster, as it's known in our house. I know I've protested rather loudly lately that I'm nowhere near ready for another baby, and for the most part that's still the case, but it has been divine sharing my days with my two favourite people under the age of three, instead of just one. There is so much to love about having two kids, and I can't help thinking about how lovely another one would be. Arghhhh, not yet, not yet!

I never understood how people could have their babies close together; I thought it was way more work than anyone should ever wish to take on, but I do see the logic now. I've missed that particular window of opportunity but if were to be mad enough to consider a third child one day, it could very well be hot on the heels of the second, so to speak. J and my niece A are 13 months apart in age and they have had a great time together this week, playing in the pool, chasing each other around the apartment and indulging in their mutual love for Justine Clarke and the Wiggles. Two kids may be ten times the work but they are oodles of fun, and I love getting double doses of kisses and cuddles every day.

On the downside (and I really need to focus on the downside!), neither of them are great at sharing, and they want to do everything that the other is doing. That's ok at mealtimes and bathtime, but once we even had them doing tandem poo poo's! And they definitely feed off each other when they're in simultaneous bad moods. A sensed that J was having a bad day with his teething, earlier in the week, and she was particularly difficult at dinnertime; spitting out her pasta just because he was. Outings can be a challenge, especially when one or the other, or both of them want to walk; you really need an extra pair of hands, to wrangle recalcitrant toddlers back into line. Luckily I have two helpers, so I don't have to worry about anything other than the two beautiful people I'm lucky to be spending my days with. And there's no shortage of things to occupy them here; Gymboree, a massive garden, several pools and plenty of loving arms everywhere we go.

Even with all the help I'm exhausted and I have a whole lot of respect for mums who do it all, every day, all on their own. I might be naive but I'm hoping that taking care of someone else's child as well as my own, and trying to respect their way of parenting, is somewhat more challenging than if they were both mine. Either way it's a good kind of exhausted and I like the way two kids fill my day, and my heart, and constantly surprise and amuse me. It hasn't all been easy; I've had a lot of moments where I've questioned whether or not I've been doing the right thing. I can't in any way be a substitute for A's mummy, but I can make sure she eats and sleeps and has a bath, and is as happy as she can be under the circumstances. I had a nap yesterday afternoon and when I woke up I realised that one of the kids' daddies was alone with both of them. I wondered to myself what he would do with them if I left them alone; would he be able to occupy them the way that I had all week? I laughed out loud at the thought. I was so pleased when I came out and found our helper playing with them while daddy was on the computer. The fact that it hadn't even occurred to him to try and take them out was the validation I needed that I am definitely the one for this particular job. My mummying skills, still so new, have really been put to the test, and I think I've done a pretty good job. They both still love me at the end of the week, which is all I can really ask for.

Crime and Punishment

Lately we've started thinking about discipline. J is testing the boundaries more and more each day, and saying "no" very seriously and emphatically just sends him into fits of giggles - not an effective way of getting the message across, clearly. Lots of friends use the time out/naughty corner technique and it seems very effective but J is still too young for that to have any impact yet. We do however, feel like we need to set the stage now and pre-empt any bad behaviour by making it clear what is and isn't acceptable early on (let's face it, we're in for a challenging time; he takes after both his parents, and we were both very naughty toddlers...).

We are not fans of smacking/spanking and don't want to go down that route. This isn't intended to be a rant arguing against the psychological effects of hitting your children, but I do know a little bit about Behavioural Psychology from my teaching days. Studies do show that physical punishment just doesn't work, for a lot of reasons. When I was at school corporal punishment, like the cane, was still an acceptable method of disciplining children. The nuns were the most likely to use it and seemed to take particular pleasure in inflicting pain on my unruly classmates, and this was when I was in primary school! My parents would threaten us with the wooden spoon sometimes and my Nanna kept a leather strap in the kitchen cupboard. Neither of these objects were ever used on us, it was utterly terrifying just thinking about it, and that was enough to keep us in line. Back in those days it was more common and certainly more acceptable to smack your children. These days I think child protective services would be knocking on your door if they heard you had threatened to hit your child with a spoon, whether you actually intended to or not. Times have changed and I think there are many very good reasons why.

Personally, I hate the thought of smacking a child; I can't even discipline the dog! I remember being smacked as a child, not often, but occasionally. The threat of it was always there and that was enough for me. My brother tended to push the boundaries more often and wore a red bum fairly frequently. I very clearly remember my mum slapping me on the leg once for shouting at my brother. It didn't hurt much but I'll never forget how it made me feel. I strongly believed that, on that occasion, the punishment did not fit the crime, and the emotional scar was much deeper than the physical one. I don't ever want my children to feel that way, no matter how naughty they may be. I can't say I won't ever smack them, but right now I'd like to think that I won't. I just have to look at my son's cherubic little face and I can't imagine ever laying a hand on him. At the same time I can't imagine him ever being naughty enough to make me that cross, but we've still got a long way to go, and I'm not that naive.

Before you stop reading because I'm starting to sound holier than thou, I have to tell you a story. Several months ago I smacked my nine-year-old nephew, B. He has had a less than ideal upbringing and has a lot of issues. He can be a very sweet boy a lot of the time but he can also push the best of us to our limits. We had all gone to the local sweet shop one morning, where he was given all sorts of treats without showing any gratitude. I let this go because I'm not his mother. He complained a lot about other things he wanted and things he wanted to do. I let this go too. Then when we were getting in the car my mum, B's grandmother, asked him to do something for her and he replied with something along the lines of "do it yourself...". Without thinking about it I slapped him across the arm (much like I would do if my husband said something inappropriate or offensive) and said "don't you dare speak to your Nanna that way!" He instantly burst into tears and said "don't you hit me that way!" I felt absolutely awful. Partly because of his reaction but also because I did it without thinking, it was just an instinct. Some of you out there will say it was warranted, others who know the child in question might say it was a long time coming, but in my heart I knew it was wrong. I took him aside when we got home and apologised. I explained that what I did was wrong, but that he was also at fault. I think the apology negated any impact the punishment may have had but even then, it took me a long time to regain B's trust.

I've seen parents smack children, both in their own homes and in public, and I always sympathise with the child. I don't believe humiliating them in front of others is ever a good way to teach them right from wrong. I also feel that smacking a child, especially when their crime is a violent one, is outright hypocrisy. I find it hard to understand why parents would knowingly send their children the message that it's ok to hit someone smaller than you if you believe they've done the wrong thing. I'm aware that I'm at risk of offending a few people with this particular diatribe, so let me just say that I believe every parent has the right to discipline their children the way they see fit. It is a very personal decision, albeit a potentially controversial one. As I said, I'm not perfect; I'm only human, and we're all liable to outbursts every now and then. Sometimes instinct leads the way over reason and we lose our tempers and smack our kids. This isn't by any means justification for corporal punishment; regardless of instinct, we should all be held responsible for our actions if we're to have any hope of our children taking responsibility for theirs. I think the best way to teach them self-control, respect for others, and non-violent conflict resolution is to lead by example.

After all that I think it's clear what we're NOT going to do when J starts acting up. We still have to solve the dilemma of what we will do. Stay tuned.

Now You're One...

I had this fear that if I didn't keep blogging while I was away that people would stop reading. That hasn't turned out to be the case fortunately but I did feel it was important, today of all days, to check in. Our time in Sydney has been a rollercoaster ride of loving then hating the place we used to call home, but I'll write more about that later.

Today I have to write to acknowledge that it is my beautiful boy's first birthday! I looked at him last night smiling up at me and was overwhelmed with love and pride. He's by far the best thing I've ever done and I'm amazed every day by how much he has grown and developed without any input from us. His personality has bits of both of us but he is a unique and special individual, and I never expected that from a 1 year old. Every day he gets better and better and I really feel blessed to have him in my life, and to have the opportunity to spend so much time getting to know him. We have been attached at the hip this week, on our own in a studio apartment in Sydney. He has been a bit unsettled by the trip and hasn't let me out of his sight. It's nice to be so needed but at the same time I'd really like a bit of peace to go to the loo and have a shower! I'm afraid it's not going to be a pleasant birthday for him but it will certainly be memorable. We're both sick with different bugs and have spent most of the day so far asleep. It's a far cry from the fun day with friends that I had planned but I figure, since he's too young to know any different, we can always celebrate another time.

I realised earlier today, with just a hint of irony, that I spent the 9th of December last year in pain and doped up as well, just in a different way. Despite that, it's still a very significant day. I'm sure it probably has a lot to do with hormones but I have nothing but fond memories of the day our son came into our lives, and his birthday will always have meaning for me, more so than my own ever has. I'd love to share the story of his birth with you all but I am about to collapse with exhaustion so it will have to wait for another day. I do, however, want to say how thrilled I am to be celebrating this milestone. I thought I'd be a bit sad at having to admit that my baby was not a baby anymore, but the opposite is true. He's such a sweet, good-natured little boy that I couldn't ask for more. Except maybe more time. Waiting for J to arrive was the longest wait of my life and as soon as he was here it was like life went into fast-forward. I cannot believe it's been a year since our lives changed so dramatically, for the better, forever. I want time to slow down but at the same time I can't wait to see what the next year holds. Happy Birthday my lovely boy.

Birthday Parties and other Frivolities

A warning for those who are pressed for time: This is going to be one of those posts that isn't about much at all and ends with me waxing lyrical about how gorgeous my son is.

Tomorrow we're hosting a pre-birthday birthday party for J. We'll be in Sydney for his actual birthday and we wanted to celebrate with our friends here in some way. I read somewhere, in a party planning guide, that you should invite one guest for every year of the child's age. Well, one person just didn't seem like a proper party, and my son's best friends are triplets so that piece of advice was promptly ignored. I did however, want to keep things fairly quiet and low key so I only invited a handful of our closest friends and neighbours. My husband was disappointed by my list and went on to invite just about everyone we've ever met in Hong Kong. This lead to a fairly significant argument over invitation etiquette; my husband being of the belief that it's best to invite everyone to avoid offending someone. He was sure many of our single friends would have better things to do on a Saturday afternoon than come to a kids birthday party, and would politely decline. I'm not a fan of the token invite, preferring not to take that chance and risk ending up with 40 people at my son's first birthday, but the invites had already been sent. So we didn't get off to a great start but in the end we are expecting about 20 people, parents and kids, which I think is perfect.

I worked for a few days this week and my husband and I were both struck down (at different times) by a nasty stomach bug so the week was a little stressful. It was also the week the December roster came out so we were busy dealing with several sets of parents and trying to coordinate our upcoming trip to Sydney. As it turned out we simply ended up disappointing everyone (a separate blog post on this topic is coming), so the week was unpleasant as well as stressful. In amongst all that I did do a lot of planning for my boy's big day but very little preparation. I spent today running around buying groceries and trying to find party supplies (impossible on Lantau and in Elements), the whole time worrying that J was going to be tired and cranky and that the whole thing had gotten to be too big a deal. I pressed on and finally tracked down balloons and party bags at the toy shop in Mui Wo (thanks Bizzie Lizzie). Despite being ever so helpful, the lady that runs the shop mentioned prizes for games and I smacked my head in disbelief: yet another thing to worry about that I hadn't even thought of! I wanted to write tonight about the unnecessary pressure I've put on myself this week to be supermum and to put on a great party for my little one. I remembered all the parties I've been to and the little things that other parents have done to make them special; I wanted my party to be in that same league somehow. I spent the drive home worrying about pass-the-parcel and age-appropriate music and walked in the door swearing that J's first birthday party would be the last.

Then I started thinking about why it is we were so keen to celebrate this milestone. It's because it's his first birthday, his first ever. My little boy was born (almost) a year ago and he's a fantastic human being who deserves to be celebrated, whether he knows it or not. When I was getting J ready for bed tonight he started playing with the ipod that we keep in his room for his sleepytime music, and despite the fact that there wasn't anything coming out of it he started bouncing up and down, his idea of dancing. I turned it on and his little face lit up and he did his best Stevie Wonder impersonation, swaying from side to side. At that moment he was so cute and sweet that I thought my heart would burst! This whole week he's kept me smiling, no matter how stressful things have been. And that's why I'm throwing him a party tomorrow.

While I'm at it, I think we deserve to celebrate for ourselves too. We survived a year of colic, reflux, sleep deprivation, baby flu (worse than man flu), pureed vegies on the carpet, porridge in our hair, and everyone who is biologically related to us feeling as though they have a right to be a part of our son's life (when it's actually more like a privilege that has to be earned).  The best part is that we survived all that and we couldn't be happier.

I realised that my son is too young to remember that he even had a first birthday. And I also realised that all of the children coming tomorrow are under the age of three and most of them will just be happy to be outside playing with their friends. So, there'll be cake but it'll come out of a packet. There'll be food, but it'll be healthy, tasty stuff for the grown-ups. There won't be games, but we've hired an expensive beach-side patch of grass for the kids to play on. There will be party bags, but there isn't much in them. And if my son is tired and cranky we'll bring him home and put him to bed, and years from now we'll tell him that his first birthday was awesome. I'm already planning next year's...

Toddler Taming

Tantrums in public... we've all seen them. I used to pity the poor parents trying to wrangle a screaming child out of a shop without getting themselves worked up. I've also seen parents make threats, leave the screaming child in the shop and walk away, and more often than not, give in to the child's demands in an attempt to end the tantrum. There have been times when I've been a bit judgemental and wondered what the parent had done to let things get to that point in the first place. I wondered how much of it was out of the parent's control and how much was the result of bad habits and poor parenting. I'm learning to be less judgemental these days, now that that parent is me.

My little guy is far too young to be considered naughty. He's definitely asserting his independence and testing the boundaries, but he doesn't yet know right from wrong, so when he does have a public meltdown there's generally a good reason for it. Yesterday was the first time he had a proper meltdown, witnessed by others, and my futile attempts to calm him down will ensure I am much more sympathetic towards others in the future. Yesterday morning we were at playgroup and J had been a bit cranky on and off throughout the morning. He has no less than four teeth trying to break through and is clearly uncomfortable, so I don't blame him really. He was playing quite happily with a toy when he suddenly decided he wanted to do something different. He started to make a fuss and I made the mistake of picking him up to take him to a different part of the room. Well, he thrashed about kicking and screaming and smacking me in the face, and I had no idea what to do and just stood there stunned, shushing him. The teacher was so concerned that she stepped in and took him off me, and the change of scene stopped him in his tracks. Suddenly mummy wasn't looking so bad and he reached out for me again. The whole incident lasted less than a minute but it was playing on my mind for quite a while. I realised I need a strategy for future tantrums; less "deer in the headlights" and more "grabbing the bull by the horns," so to speak, so other adults don't feel the need to intervene.

I'm afraid that tantrums will soon become a regular occurance, and that will be entirely my fault. Not because I'm a bad parent but because, thanks to the magic of genetics, J takes after me when it comes to tantrums. He has inherited a combination of looks and personality traits from both of us, some of them good and others less so. He looks like my husband but he has my family's stocky build and muscular legs. Great if you're a boy wanting to play football, but less appealing if you're a girl trying to find a pair of knee high boots to fit over your enormous calves! J has my husband's enthusiasm for life and boundless energy. They both find it impossible to sit down. I'm quite pleased about that, even if it can be exhausting at times. Holidays on tropical islands with my husband generally involve one day of lying on the beach and followed by a week of kayaking, snorkelling, shopping, motorbike riding, hiking etc. In future my husband and son can go off and do those things together while I lie on the beach with a book, it's perfect! Our little guy is a sensitive soul, he's sweet and funny and is quite the chatterbox, but one of the traits, the worst trait, he has inherited from me is a short fuse.

I've always been terribly impatient and when J was born I made a deliberate attempt to control that. I didn't want him to see me getting cross and easily frustrated, and "pick it up." As it turns out the temper gene seems to be in his DNA; he's not imitating his mum, he's been impatient from day one. When I was breastfeeding he'd scream and bite me if the milk didn't come out quick enough! Now, if things don't go his way he snaps, and if he doesn't get what he wants, when he wants it, watch out! Last night when he didn't want to go to bed he let out a scream that sounded an awful lot like "nononononono NO!" I have a feeling we'll be hearing that a lot! He's generally a really happy baby, but he's also what I would call "fiery". This trait has served me well at times, it means I get things done quickly and I know how to stand up for myself, but in a place like Hong Kong it can be a liability. My mum tells me I was a terrible toddler, and she'll probably say that I'm only getting back everything I gave her, so I'm hoping to tap into that when J starts melting down more often. I've realised that's my strategy; there's no one better to tame my toddler than one who knows how to throw a decent tantrum themselves. There are interesting times ahead, stay tuned.