Amazing!

A couple of weeks back, while I was busy doing ironing and laundry Charlotte found "new" treasures in her "old" toy storage boxes and she was actually quite fascinated with some of those (make mental note: to save money, maybe I should just dig out the old toys once in awhile).

I didn't really pay attention to what she was doing but I knew she was playing on this learning board and it was actually very noisy initially but the noise went unnoticed as I tried to get the laundry done. When I was finally sat down at night, she brought out the learning board and said "mommy, listen..."



This is a replay that I took yesterday. WOW! How amazing was that! I never taught her to play like this before and to be honest I had never touch my piano myself for ages! I also did not teach her the "Do Re Mi" and I have no idea how she could play that all by her "trial & error" in such a short time. She then sang the tune with the Do Re Mi too.

Another treasure she found was the harmonica. It was the one from attending the Kindermusik earlier. She insisted to bring it along when we went out for dinner over the weekend. I thought it was a bad idea because it was going to be very noisy and probably disturbing other guests at the restaurant. But I was wrong!! The harmonica has only 1 octive and as we were at the restaurant I taught her the same song just to avoid her making other people feeling annoyed. This is the result...



This is also a replay, she was trying to be funny when I told her that I want to capture that in a video. I never thought she could figure out the blow & suck sequence of a harmonica over a meal!

Whether it was just a coincidence or she has that little bit more than just interest, I am signing her up at Yamaha officially. Hopefully this goes a long way.

A Promise Is To Keep

It has been a long and busy 2.5 weeks. Actually, I was only away from home for 1 week but it takes longer than I expected it to be to clear the work backlogs.

While I was away, daddy made a promise to Charlotte that he would take her to horse riding one day. I don't know where and how this idea came about until one night Charlotte was reading her bedtime story book. There it was!

The same evening I touched down the airport, we headed to the north side of the island and daddy kept his promise!

However, come next Monday I had trouble getting Charlotte to school. She felt like she didn't have enough time with me and that separation anxiety kicked in again. It was a difficult week, every morning I had to deal with a crying pre-schooler. I tried to distract her with treats and play after school but it just didn't go very far.

One night, it was just me and her as daddy was still busy at work. I had a very close heart to heart talk with her. I told her that she made me very sad that every morning I had to leave her crying and drag myself to work. She didn't understand why initially but I pointed out to her with some examples and she finally agrees that she would feel the same way too if it is mommy that cries. I then told her that I kept all my promises to her, she asked for early picked up and I did, she asked for Crayola Finger Paint Book and I got her one from my trip, she asked for a new princess crown (I broke the previous one) and I bought her a very nice from from my trip too, plus many extras but I told her that she didn't keep her only promise to me. She kept quiet.

The next morning, she whined but not as much and I thought oh well, all that talk last night didn't work out. As I was dropping her off in front of the school, she said "mommy, I don't want to cry but please come pick me up at 4pm!". I thought that was an improvement alright. I wasn't plan to pick her up at 4pm because she asks for that everyday anyway. But then I considered it again, maybe I should because we talked about promises the night before and she was trying to keep her promise! So I took 2nd half off from work and went to pick her up at 4pm. When she saw me coming, she was really really happy. I pointed at the clock to her and told that I am keeping my promise again. I also told her that there will not be any more 4pm pick up after today and she has to keep her promise and do her part.

So far, the "promise" episode works out well. Let's hope for it to go far as I will have a very busy work schedule starting end Apr :(