Stuttering Episodes

During the first half of my pregnancy with Adrian, he had me very worried because one of the pre-natal tests came back indicating that he was at an increased risk of Down Syndrome. It was the first time in my life that I was constantly worrying about something day and night, for weeks! Anyway, all that worry was relieved after week 20 of the pregnancy when I had another scan.

About three weeks ago, he did it to me again - gave me a day and night type of worry. He has been speaking very well and chats like some three year olds. His sentences are long and mostly complete ones with correct grammar. So, it came as a real shock when he started stuttering. I don't know what the trigger was the first time, but one night, he started repeating the word 'I'. He always says 'I love you' about a hundred times before he goes to sleep but that night, he repeated the 'I' five times each time he said it.

By the next morning, he was repeating the first word of every sentence he spoke. And by that evening, when he was tired, he had to work so hard to get the first word out that he would start crying. It was heart wrenching to watch.

All this happened during the Chinese New Year period when we were very busy and there were a lot of people around. When we finally managed to have a quiet day at home, and I could dedicate all my attention to him, he seemed to improve. Instead of repeating a word, he would just drag it into a long sound. And then, strangely, a blessing in disguise happened. He clipped his finger in a door hinge and the next day, he woke up and he spoke normally again. Boy was I relieved!

About a week later, I lost my temper at him and gave him a loud and overly harsh scolding. Almost instantly, the stuttering returned - worse. He repeated every word in each sentence! This carried on for quite a few days and I noticed that he started to choose not to communicate with words. While quiet is one of the things I crave for this household, you can imagine the guilt I felt for scolding him and wishing for quiet when he was now finding it too hard to even attempt speaking. We were still in Malaysia but I made an appointment at a speech pathologist for the day after we were to arrive back. Strangely, on the same day that I made the arrangements for the appointment, he bumped his chin on the edge of a table and ended up cutting his lip. He went for a nap straight afterwards and when he woke up, he spoke normally again! I guess the brain got something else to worry about and freed up his speech or something. I was so thankful!

We still went for the appointment when we got back to Brisbane but the speech pathologist said he spoke perfectly, above average his age group in fact. She couldn't tell me anything useful because she wasn't able to observe him. We're supposed to monitor him for the next three weeks and go back.

The forced lesson from all this is that I am now about ten notches more patient. I've consciously tried to become one of those silent but deadly parents - I have not achieved this yet. There were a few times where I had to discipline Adrian, and I did this by either taking away an offending toy or removing him from a situation. He started dragging out the first words in some of his sentences again. Thankfully, it only lasted a day and then disappeared.

What am I supposed to do with a two year old that I cannot lose it with? I know you're not supposed to in the first place but it happens! I must not compare my sons but even without this problem, Adrian was well on his way to becoming a much more challenging two year old than Aaron was.

I'm Finally Starting The Year

We arrived back from Malaysia on Monday and jumped straight into things. The month away from the internet was surprisingly refreshing - I didn't suffer any withdrawal symptoms or even miss it. Apart from occasionally remembering to Skype Richard, I was happy to be offline.

I might have already missed a whole month of the calendar year but maybe I'll go by the lunar calendar instead. That way, I'm only two weeks behind. I can't say that I'm rested after a six week holiday, in fact, I am exhausted from single parenting for the past month, but I am definitely enthusiastic about starting the year. Adrian is two years old now and a little bit more independent. I want to seriously work on my own things again - bank account balance, stamina, brain capacity, and of course, this blog. Lets see if I can get back to daily blogging.

So for this first post of the year, here are the highlights of our six weeks in Malaysia.

We had a mini party for Adrian's second birthday. Many of my extended family were already in Ipoh because of Christmas so we invited them all to the house for noodles, roti canai and a banana chocolate cake. This is a photo of Adrian with all the ladies that were present. I'm still asking around for anyone who took a decent family photo of us.

Richard was only in Malaysia for about two weeks and for one of those weeks, we were in his hometown of Penang. We spent time with family there as well as a few fun days at one of the beach hotels.

The main reason for our visit back to Ipoh was for the whole family to make a big deal of Chinese New Year. Almost everybody was back. My grandparents are 89 and 94 and the whole family coming together for a big celebration means a lot to them. When I was a child, my grandmother would invite the lion dance to her house. Thirty years later, she is too old to be bothered with the hassle of it and I invited them to our house instead. I LOVE watching lion dances, the loud drums and firecrackers always put me in a festive mood. And, it has always been a dream of mine to have them come to our house in Ipoh.

In the photo above, the two lions are peeling and arranging the pomelo, mandarins and peanuts. Supposedly, its good luck to eat these things that the sweaty 'lions' have prepared.

This trip was intended to be all about my grandparents. While I did spend a lot of time with them, I left with the feeling that I still didn't spend ALL my time with them. Aaron and Adrian are still too young to just sit around and chat with old people, and, at this age, thats about all my grandparents can do. In the end, I was over at their house a lot of the time, but each time, it was only for a short period of time. I hope that I'll get another chance to do this in the future. Here is one final photo of my grandfather, Adrian and I.

Tomorrow is our first Saturday back and I plan on doing nothing. The past six weeks have been so hectic that I need to take a break now.

Are we on holidays yet?

This week has been managed to be simultaneously slow and hectic. Slow because everyone is in the holiday mood and mode but the real holidays aren't quite here yet. There is this feeling of prolonged anticipation around us. And amidst all that, I seem to have had a constant stream of things to do to get ready for our trip back to Ipoh, Malaysia tomorrow.  Multiple trips to the shops, packing and unpacking, planning what food to bring and of course how to keep the two boys entertained for nearly 12 hours.

I think I've got everything. We leave at 5.30am tomorrow and that means that there won't be any time for last minute re-packing. I used to think that as long as I had my passport, tickets and a credit card with me, all the rest won't matter. Obviously, thats not the case anymore.

My next post will probably be sometime in the new year. And, I'll have to work much harder to make my blogging more frequent otherwise there won't be a blog (or readers!) to talk about by the end of 2012.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year everybody!

He Rides!

It has been awhile since Aaron has hit any major milestones. When he was still a teeny baby, I did start off tracking baby milestones in a notebook but that practice was abandoned soon after he rolled over for the first time. And after he started doing the basic things like walking, talking and going to the bathroom by himself, I not only didn't write them down, I probably also stopped thinking in terms of 'milestones' for him. I'm a little ashamed to say that much of my record of his life is right here on this blog. 


Anyway, its time for another 'milestone' to be recorded here. Aaron is finally riding a bike! This has taken longer than I expected. I started teaching him in September 2009. Thats over two years ago! Perhaps its another one of those things that they'll do when they're ready. Previously, he insisted on leaving the trainer wheels on all the time. He finally outgrew that first bike I got him and when we got him a flashy new Lightning McQueen bike, I said it didn't come with any trainer wheels. 


I think this accomplishment deserves more than just a photo. Here's a video instead...

Richard and I got our exercise by taking turns jogging next to him around that oval. Maybe next time we'll be able to sit back and relax. Oh wait.... there's still Adrian. 


Here is a final photo. Is it just me or do you also see a proud look of satisfaction on his face?

I wonder if this blog will still be around when he starts driving...

Definitely Feeling Like Christmas

Saturday to Tuesday was a blur to me. I met up with four different sets of people and attended two Christmas parties. I dragged Aaron and Adrian from an hour south of Brisbane to an hour north of Brisbane and they were very patient with it all. We're all definitely in the Christmas mood now. I almost want to put up a Christmas tree. 'Almost' being the key word there. It might seem a bit lazy of me but I just don't think its worth it since we won't actually be here for Christmas and no presents are going to be put under it. 

To make up for the lack of a Christmas tree, we have all day long Christmas carols instead. Don't groan. Its a good thing! I love them and this year, I've even learnt a couple of new ones. Aaron and Adrian will be well prepared to impress the grandparents with their singing - if they can control the dinosaur roars that they like to throw in every once in awhile. 

Aaron has had me secretly laughing each time we go to a shopping mall because he gets very excited about all the decoration. He walks around looking and admiring it all while loudly exclaiming "Wow!" and "Look at that Mama. Isn't it beautiful?". I love the innocence and awe that he has. I've grown cynical and the decorations sometimes look very tacky to me (plus, its the same ones that they put up each year)  but to him they appear magical.  

Strangely, he does not get excited at the prospect of sitting on Santa's knee. He said to me "That can't be the real Santa. The real one is in the North Pole." At least I know that he thinks Santa is real but there are fake ones about to trick little kids in shopping malls. Real or fake, he still went up to have a chat with one of them.


And here is Adrian, trying out to be a reindeer. He just goes along with whatever Aaron is finding exciting. I don't think Christmas has any special meaning to him yet. 

So from reindeer, lets move on to penguins. I had never heard this Christmas song until about a week ago and its become my latest favourite. Its called "Penguin, James Penguin" - very cute! I couldn't find an original clip of  Brad Paisley singing it but if you search on YouTube, there are a couple of other cute versions like this.

...

But I've got another story
That I bet you haven't heard
Did you know that Santa
Has a secret agent bird

He's Penguin, James Penguin
That dapper little guy
Like a well dressed duck in a three piece tux
He's Santa's secret spy

From an undisclosed location
He's watching me and you
He's got satellite uplinks in his cufflinks
Yeah he sees everything you do

Not so very long ago
Santa didn't need much help
But with more and more kids every year
He soon got overwhelmed
He told the elves one Christmas
We can't do this anymore
Then a knight in shining polyester
Waddled through his door

And it was Penguin, James Penguin
He was there to save the day
He had wireless
And GPS outfitted on the sleigh

And Santa said Penguin
Won't you be my ears and eyes
How'd you like to help me run
My SCFBI

All I Want For Christmas

Honestly, right now, all I want for Christmas is to have my Christmas shopping done! I started looking around for gifts nearly two weeks ago. I had my list but I probably only checked it once because since then, I've bought at least seven gifts but only two names on my original list have been crossed off! We'll be heading back to Malaysia for a big extended family Christmas. Everyone will be there and I don't want anybody to miss out on a gift. It is absolutely true that the joy at Christmas comes from giving a gift - I love that part of it. Its the acquisition of the gift that is giving me a headache right now. 


On top of Christmas, we've got Adrian's birthday two days later and then Richard's birthday eight days after that! Those dates only occurred to me as I started this post. MORE GIFTS REQUIRED!


So, as I go off to do some virtual window shopping in preparation from some actual leg work this afternoon, let me leave you with some Christmas jokes for kids. Aaron is at the stage of telling some very bad kids jokes so maybe I can add these to his repertoire. And maybe some of you can go impress a little kid with a joke they can appreciate.




1. Which of Santas reindeer has bad manners? - Rude-alph


2. What do you get if you eat Christmas decorations? - Tinselitus


3. What is the best Christmas present in the world? - A broken drum - you cant beat it


4. What did the cow say on Christmas morning? - Moo-ry Christmas


5. What do monkeys sing at Christmas? Jungle bells, jungle bells! 


Yes, I know these jokes are a little sad, but trust me, the kids will love them!

The Latest In My Sewing Adventures

I mentioned in the last post that I have been quite distracted recently. Well, here are two of the reasons why...

The flat front shorts for Aaron were completed a little while ago but I never got around to putting a photo here. I thought the print of the material would immediately draw Aaron to the shorts but he's complaining that they are too light. Whats that supposed to mean? Its summer! I told him to wear thicker underwear then he wouldn't notice the shorts as much. 


I copied the pattern of the little overalls from one of Adrian's existing outfits and just made it bigger. Adrian likes his outfit and wants to put it on each time he happens to see it. He even says "Mama made it!".


I'm proud of both of these sewing accomplishments. Both have been finished very neatly on the inside and everything is precise. 


I have several other unfinished projects just waiting to be completed before Christmas. Big ideas, big plans but poor time management so far has seen only two of them get done. There is a Spinosaurus still waiting to be 'embroidered', a pirate ship that is still in the conceptual stage and then there are the clothes that I want to make for myself. Some of the things I had planned were with Christmas type material so they HAVE to get done in the next couple of weeks. Wish me luck!