Friday, May 8, 2009

Keeping Kayden

With the arrival of Dylan, I have been spending considerably much less time with Kayden and of late I have seen him distancing himself from me :( To salvage our relationship, I made a conscious effort the past few weeks to have some quality time with my first born.

Last month, I brought him to a children's play "Bear and Chicken go Camping". We took the train (his first time as a toddler) and generally had a great morning together, just him and me :)



Using his EZlink card on the MRT












When we first walked into the auditorium and he saw the colourful set on stage, he said excitedly to me, "Look mummy! A big TV!" Hahaha!


One Sunday, we did some baking together, oatmeal raisin cookies. Here's the proud baker with his bakes.


Besides asking lots of questions every chance he gets, Kayden also makes interesting and sometimes funny observations. While watching Animal Planet (his favourite channel), he saw a stingray and commented that it looks like a roti prata :D He sees me breastfeeding Dylan and will pretend to breastfeed his own "baby" when it "cries"!



He is extremely sensitive to our emotions now. One morning when I had a big fight with Erwin and stomped out of the house to work, he cried and made Erwin find me. I feel really bad to quarrel in front of the kids and mentally told myself it will be the last time I did that. He has been expressing himself better through language and emotions, sometimes coming up to give me a hug or kiss for no reason and saying "I love you". :) Makes my heart expand with joy. As his grandma would say of him, "Dio hor siok!" meaning "so good to love" :D He has started speaking Singlish but the placement of "Lah" and "Lei" is like that of a foreigner trying to speak Singlish on purpose :p His chinese has also been described by my China cleaning lady as "rotten". He loves to sing the chinese songs he learns in school but they often sound funny, again like some ang moh speaking mandarin. But I really enjoy these moments when he sings with wild abandon, the joy in his face as he does.

In case you haven't noticed from the pictures, he gives this horrible cringed up face when we ask him to smile for the camera. Like so:




But when he doesn't, it's such a handsome face don't you think?


His photography skills have not improved very much since the first time we let him have the camera. But occasionally we get some good shots with no heads cut off :D




We brought him for a cable car ride last weekend, he had a great time and I hope he will be just as easy going when we head for Perth later this month.




Here's a shot he took of me with Dylan sleeping in the ergo.






This is his horrible look when we ask him to open his eyes for the camera :s


He demands your attention every now and then, "Mummy, see the crocodile!" pointing to the tv. I will murmur "Yes Kayden." and nod my head but all the time my eyes were still on the computer. He will then reply haughtily, "No you didn't see!" "I did Kayden, I saw." "NOooo! You were looking at the computer!" ahhh hahahaha :D On days when he's adament on his way, he will come right up to your face and put both his little hands on your cheek and speak right in your face "Look!" :s

He has the memory of an elephant but does not refer to time correctly. Something that has past will always be "yesterday" no matter how long ago it was. "Yesterday someone stepped on the snail, so poor thing." He was referring to a crushed snail shell I pointed out to him a few days ago. Yet he knows how to say "just now" when it happened not too long ago. Really wonder how the brain of a kid works, it's fascinating :)

My dear Kayden boy, no matter how much time mummy spends with di di, you know that you will always be my "big baby" and mummy loves you both equally - with all my heart!

4 comments:

Davester said...

yah when he puts on his normal face he's such a handsome boy. Quite some nice shots too! Future can take over ur photography biz! hehe

J.H said...

that's so thoughtful of you to give a treat for your first born. I am an oldest in my family (I have 1 little sister), and I did feel the sibling rivalry when I was born. Unfortunately, my parents never explain or did anything to reassure me that I wasn't my sister's rival, in fact she is my friend. I just found that out myself when I was 15!!! What a waste of time :P

Boredlittleflower said...

That picture kayden took was good!! Were you trying to lower your heads to squeeze into the picture so that your heads do not get 'cut off'? Hehe.

maryann koh said...

dave, if he can hurry up and grow up then take over, i can finally retire :p

jess, i read somewhere that a sibling is a best friend given by God :D

judy, haha interesting observation! :)