Mar 2014: Shining Four

As she was marching toward Fourth birthday, I showed her what is four, playfully with her fingers, one, two, three, four. She grinned marvelously. Four seems to be a big number compare to Three, she was very looking forward to. I reckoned she has learnt a lot more about her growth and development from past year. As I looked at her happy face to the new discovery, I thought and added on, "When you are four, you have four things to do...". Indicatively, each finger tied with a challenge for her to take up. It would be some form of change to her life moving forward. Knowing her, she doesn't really like changes, but I believe she could do it and would get the great sense of accomplishment to meet her milestone significantly. I promised her that I would help. 

It was also a task for myself to learn her growth, that she is baby no more. 

Credits: Akizo, Sahlin studio, etc.

As I was saying, four things to accomplish...:  

1. No more drinking milk from milk bottle - at the age of three, she was only drinking milk from bottle at night. She had weaned off bottlefeed during daytime;
2. No more wearing diaper at night - similarly, she is still wearing diaper to sleep;
3. No more co-sleep with mama - the single bed is getting smaller to squeeze in both of us;
4. To start attending wushu lesson. She is sprightly. In her mum's opinion, wushu is a great platform to bounce and jump, to stretch and bend. 

She nodded happily, bravely accepted the challenges. I doubt she knew what she had committed with... that, she loves holding the milk bottle at night before sleep and how tough not to wet the bed at night. Oh ya, it was tough, especially for the diaper part. She initiated it by saying, "I am four, I should not wear diaper like a baby" and began to stay away from diapers. But she is not ready. She wet the bed consecutively few nights  and cried the next morning to me, "Sorry, mummy!" 

I put the diaper back on her. Let's do this again when you are ready, darling.

Dumping the milk bottle, on the other hand, was the easiest and done within two nights. She is now drinking milk from cup. Also, she is attending wushu lesson without much fuss. Though, I had a hard time to coax her at the very beginning. But I'm lucky that we have a very firm, persistent laoshi (coach) willing to take her as well as her almost 30 minutes cry or big fuss for few lessons in a row, without me or the big sister involved. She is now happily attending the classes. It is to our surprise that she took less than her jiejie's record of 2 months (ie 8 weeks) to ease her self and attend the class comfortably, independently.

As of the sleeping part, she is able to sleep on her own now. I reckon, she remembers her promise and she has to keep it. Sometime, she's happy with being big girl, going to bed independently. Sometimes not so, "Mama, can you sleep with me?" I would quickly grab my blanket and pillow, hop onto her bed, squeeze and snuggle her. I am more than happy to oblige her request. I miss those nights that she kicked me, laid on me, or even cried for me in the middle of the night (when I sneakily went back to my bed).

I miss my baby Bomber.