My 3 year old.

Kayla's 3 yrs old:

• Started not to wear diapers during naps yet managed to stay dry!( thou there are accidents too). Good improvements!

• Able to write letter l, i, m, b and number 0, 1, E

• Like to sit at the dining table with us & not wear bib cuz she said she's a big girl now!

• Feeling encouraged by being a big sister-to-be, she takes more initiative to learn independent skills like washing her own hands, learning to dress & undress herself, feed herself. Then she will want me to tell baby what she has done. I think she will be a very proud sister to the baby!

• Started teaching her how to wear her own socks. She tend to give up when it gets difficult to stretch open her socks opening. But we keep encouraging her by letting her try & try, with some help from us.

• Surprised us when she started to slip in her feet into her sandals by herself! We always wanted her to learn independence in doing such simple chores.

• Got her a new watch & learning clock so that she can learn to tell the time & also to learn how to keep her on track of activities without knowing the time

Proud of her!

• Play "Happy Birthday", "Twinkle Twinkle Little Stars", "London Bridge", "Jingle Bells" on the piano independently. (We seldom play the piano with her, but she will look at the music book and memorize the music scores by the color & letters of the keys)

• Learning to cut along the line on the paper

• Able to spell her own name!

- Also learnt to spell words like "Stop" (Keep asking the father to stop whenever sees the Stop sign on the road), "No", "Daddy".

• I can draw a tree!

• Learning to color within the boundaries

Character Display

• She displays an observant & sensitive character towards people ard her, esp when she sees People sleeping, or talking on the phone, she will initiate for us to ssh (be silent).When we tell her we are not feeling well, she will also be concerned for us and ask us what's wrong with us. Subsequently she may also follow up & ask if we are well already? Or are we still in pain? Stimes she will even take her toy doc's kit to give us a check up! Haha

• Tantrums Throwing:

First time seeing her having a nasty tantrum throwing by throwing everything from the table to the floor (gently) and putting the chairs down (not slamming them down). She had a very short nap in the day and that likely explains why she's in such a cranky mood towards the evening time. We didn't stop her immediately. Instead I felt she needs to vent her frustrations. We sat there quietly and observe, then we tell her calmly that she is to pick up everything later otherwise we are going to throw everything away. When her frustrated mood calms down, and is able to listen to us, then we pick up everything together.

I realise, dealing with kids nowadays, cannot be totally autocratic. They are mostly stubborn and refuse to listen, unless you put up a tough & long shouting war with them. Instead I prefer to do it the flexible way. Think of what may prompt them to listen. Entice them instead of forcing them. If this minute the child cannot/refuse to do it, then give them some time. At the next minute, maybe they are more prepared and more willing to do the things you want them to do. And, I always try to have fun with her when I want her to cooperate in doing something. No point making it a chore for them. Instead, making it as play will be even more interesting for them!

New Class!

• Went to a Pre-assessment by Mindchamps Reading, she is found to be willing to try despite that she may not know certain things, giving interesting ideas such as a full stop is a "wrong circle", being able to convey subsequent consequence analysis when she was asked why do you think the boy climbs the slide? As she is only able to recognize her alphabets & not by words, and no knowledge about phonics sounds, we have decided to sign her up for the reading classes since she has the interest & potential to develop further in this area (+tis mummy duno phonics! Haha)

Activities that she likes!

• Likes to go to the library!

Side-track:
This mummy of hers can finally "graduate" when I eventually conquered the last "mission impossible"- making her to sleep! I have never able to do that for the past 3 years...never without a hard battle with tears! She's now finally closer to me and always like to have me for accompany. I hope this is not just a transition stage whereby she's feeling jealous of the impending arrival of the younger sibling, and only got attached to me becuz of that reason. I do hope I can have such girls bonding time together with her in future even when the baby arrives. I love that personal bonding time with her!

[To be continued....]