Friday, October 31, 2008

Thursday, October 30, 2008

Tele-conversation

I guess Yule's advanced language development and how she is such a smart and active little girl makes papa and mummy so proud of her. She is speaking in phrases now and sometimes can switch from english to mandarin depending who she is speaking to! Perhaps it is how she is able to relate to us through language that makes our heart goes with her. Love her every minute! She could now even have a pretty decent telephone conversation with us adults, cutely, at 18 month. It can go like this:

Mummy: Yu-le!
Yule: Mummy!
Mummy: 吃饱了吗?
Yule:
Mummy: 有没有乖?
Yule:
Mummy: 你要去哪里?
Yule: gaigai
Mummy: Mummy loves you!
Yule: you!
Mummy: Kiss kiss
Yule: hmm-mack!
Mummy: Mummy coming back soon ok?
Yule: ok
Mummy: bye bye
Yule: bye bye

Monday, October 27, 2008

Time-out vs Gorilla?

The struggle for independence and autonomy goes on, even more so when little Yule's language developement is prety advanced. While she can be obliging at times, she can be testing our limits other times too. She continues to love to say '不要', and adding on to her vocabulary is 'Don't want'. Well well, mummy and papa have our ways to tackle this:

The pro-positive-parenting me will try the 'time-out' method when little Yule's behaviour gets out of the limit. Like pulling our spectacles or hitting our face when she knows she is not supposed to, she will have to 'stand in a corner', or '罚站'. She understands both the english and chinese command very well and knows exactly what she is supposed to do. When she is in a cooperative mood, she will go stand against the wall on her own (in a very cute way, she does it!). When she doesn't want to cooperate, I will be pulling her to stand against the wall. She will stand for maybe just 3 secs and come running back to me for a hug (or ask her ah ma or por por to 'save' her if they are around). I will insist that she say 'sorry', which she will gesture by placing her hand on her head. This works well so far in stopping whatever naughty acts we want her to stop.

Papa has his own unconventional way of discipline. I guess his greatest strength is to change the situations to like a big prank or joke. When little Yule gets naughty or does not want to obey our instructions, the unconventional papa will say 'Gorilla 来了!' or 'Big bad wolf 来了', and little Yule will then quickly do what we asked her to, or at least before the next 'creature' comes along! In a very strange way, Papa just always have his way of getting to our little girl! =)

Its so funny to see how she reacts to our ways of disciplining. I couldn't agree with what papa does sometimes, but then again, I can't help but give it to him that his method can be more effective than mine at times!

Friday, October 17, 2008

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Chiam Yu Le or Dumb Yu Le?

Little Yule could say her FULL name and pronouncing her surname 'Chiam' pretty well too. It's really cute to hear her say 'Chiam Yu Le' when we ask her for her name. Ocassionally, 'Chiam Yu Le' can sound like 'Dumb Yu Le', and we'll really have a good laugh.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Happy Children's Day

Today is Children's Day, and I've got 2 new 'piggy' banks - 1 Happy Bear and 1 Happy Cat - to start to save money!