When we firstly got these two books, I found the pages were quite intimidating. They are full of massive animals, like gonnas, hippos, walruses, gorillas… To me they are not cutest or adorable animals at all. But they worked for a young reader’s heart. Now, they are growing on me as well. I found myself attracted to them more and more, and began to search all the interesting children’s books in the library.

Sitting in a quiet corner to spend 5 minutes reading a children’s picture book is such a relaxing thing. Have you ever tried it?

In the last two days I was in a boring training sessions at the work and I almost have gone insane. I pulled out these books to read when having a break (despite people’s strange look as if I have some intellectual disability), it worked like a wonder to me to take the stress away. I tell you it is much more effective than having a cuppa or a piece of cake. I love the colourful pictures and all whimsical shapes, colours which are far beyond normal adults’ perception towards the real world. I wish I could draw like that, or have the imagination like that.

I found V has her own preference, despite my own opinions about which book is better drawn or more suitable. She has the famous “where is the green sheep” and “A very hungry caterpillar” books pretty much since she was born. Though they are all very well known and popular, she prefers the sheep more than caterpillar, but she has never been super crazy about them. I tried some other books with her as well from time to time, she sometimes would tell me straight away “I don’t like this one”, like last night, I read her the story of “A bed of your own” (Cute Suzy Sue, a chubby little girl), she frowned her eyebrows and showed not much interest. She did remember the word “squashed” from the book though.

Now I have a new Pam Allen’s book in hand, a little challenging reading “Where’s the gold?” and the collection of Dr. Seuss’ 4 books. I love Dr. Seuss myself very much. It’s so inspiring and I think I am kind of in the transforming stage to change my drawing style to his

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind” – Dr. Seuss

I hope V would like them just as much as I do.

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Every time when we need to light up the lamp or put out the lamp, we asked V to blow it from wherever she was. After so many times successful experience in putting out the light by blowing the air from her mouth, now we think that she totally believes that it was her in the control of that lamp, while the real secret is a timer installed in the power point which is linking to this lamp, and a remote control that we can hold in hand to press the button to switch it on/off around the same time when she was blowing the air. The remote control is so tiny that can fit in our fist easily. she never took the notice of its existence and of course she was always very focusing on her action and enjoyed the whole thing.

It reminded me one of Adam Sandler’s movie (Can’t remember the name). He gave the boy a pair of sunnies and told him whenever he feels scared, he can wear them then nobody would be able to see him. Of course it is a lie, just like what we have been doing to V. But sometimes don’t you find it easier to just give children “light” answers than making their world too serious?

Some people might call it deception, false leading information or manipulation of the perception, we see human being’s (especially adult) sense of humour that is being played here to give our children easier version of understanding for their logic. Do you agree? Do you play tricks with them as well?

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We had a couple of other things on our schedule today, plus any time between 10am to 4pm is really not good time as high risk to get sun burnt, so I had to tell her that she had to wait until late of this afternoon.

She nodded her head and said “好” , but to be honest I really don’t know if she understood the concept of “waiting” or “afternoon” or any of my reasons that I tried to explain. The only thing I can see was when we passed by the playground in the morning, she saw it and got excited then she was kind of disappointed as we didn’t stop or head to that way.

This is where you can’t help thinking and wondering how their little mind is working, how frustrating they would feel as they couldn’t talk (with such limited language skills), get other people to understand them or make their own decisions.

How would they feel? Do they complain or oppose in their little heart? Do they remember the lies or excuses the adult said to them? If they don’t understand the logic behind what they were told, how do they get over those hard feelings that they just don’t get what they want?

At that point, you just feel that they are so vulnerable and innocent and you feel that you are responsible for not messing up their minds and looking after them well as much as you can.

So I took V to the playground after 4:15pm in the afternoon and spent about an hour there. She was trying every single thing in the park. I was like always, doing my guessing game, trying to figure out what she wanted to do or not wanted to do. I suppose that if it was not easy to me, imagine how hard it would be for her?

I think even the best parents in the world can’t say that they have 100% accuracy about understanding their toddlers, but we seems never bothered by this. Isn’t this a shame?

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I don’t know about other parents, honestly it has never been easy to me. All I can do is to think REALLY HARD and to TRY. Sometimes it works like wonders, sometimes it just doesn’t do a thing.

So this is another effort I made today. An egg carton to allow her to put small pompoms in different wells, and with poked holes in the carton, she can insert a wooden stick into it.

How long did this keep V going? Quite a little while, she seems fairly busy with her little hands. I loved it too, as it’s low cost and full of possibilities.

I find that the expensive commercial toys never really worked for my little one, though in my eyes they are really fun and educational, but every time they only had her attention for seconds, then was threw away.

The cheap, raw and coming-from-the-real-life materials, instead, always are her favorites. Don’t know how her mind is working, but the challenge, is being left to her parents. Being creative is no longer optional, it has become an order.

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Last night she decided to play this game at 11:30pm after about 3 hours sleep. Her eyes were wide open, she hit the cot with her hands, grabbed the bars to pull herself up. She practiced crunches and finally rolled over and greeted us on her tummy through the little spaces between the cot bars as if she was a little happy lion in a cage.

She smiled at us like a little old lady without teeth and she tried to talk to us with her recent added babbling sounds, such as “wa wa wa wa”.

I can’t believe this is happening. My husband and I were both very sleepy. I tried all the means to make her go back to sleep, just like what I have been trying in the past 7 months.

I rocked her, I pat her bottom, I made a pace, I danced and bounced around, I sang the songs, I breastfed her……I dim the light and I turned off the lamp……I picked her up and I put her down……I asked her gently to go back to sleep, I talked to her nicely saying it is the time for bed, I threatened her and I beg her to stop…… It made no difference, or if it ever had, what I have done only make myself more sleepy:-(

No, she hasn’t been sleeping a lot during the day. The truth is, she never has been;

No, I didn’t do anything different during the day lately;

No, I didn’t give her medication and I have not been drinking any caffein drinks myself (or maybe I should start to think about it, just be prepared for the night like this);

This is just her choice. I dare not discover how a 7 months old’s brain is operating. But thank you so much for making my life so interesting. I love you so much

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