Last Saturday, Daddy V had to work. Instead of rotting at home and did nothing, I decided to bring Little Edison to Bishan Public Library.

Bishan Public Library has a vast variety of children and preschooler books. Their children’s collection is located at Basement 1. There are children’s tables and chairs, activity room as well as multimedia stations.

I asked Little Edison to pick up a book for me to read with him. He looked around and he picked up a few books. We sat on the colorful stools and read the books together. It’s amazing how he can spend almost one hour in the library reading books with me. He has really good attention span.

I browsed through the family and parenting collection and this book caught my attention. It’s called 12 Simple Secrets Real Moms Know, by Dr. Michele Borba. It’s been quite a long time since I’ve read a parenting book. So, I borrowed it from the library.

It’s indeed a very interesting book – packed with practical approaches to parenting we need to know to be a “real mom” to great kids instead of going crazy on the supermom track. The tone of this book is warm, encouraging and hopeful.

Dr. Borba uses the first part of her book to explain what a “real mom” is as well as the “sacrificial mom.” This is one of the examples that she highlighted in her book:

“We’re no longer just managing our kids’ lives: we’re micromanaging their existence, right down to the very last detail. In doing so, we’re moving even further away from what really matters when it comes to good mothering.”

“All our obsessive and hyper mothering is not helping our kids become happy and mature young adults and may in fact be doing them more harm than good.”

She defines this as “over-parenting” and she believes that this trend is ultimately harmful to the children.

The second part of the book spells out Dr. Borba’s twelve simple secrets of real mothering. In the book, she includes testimonials from real mothers that she interviewed during her research.

I enjoy reading this book. It is very thought provoking. I’m going to share with you some of the interesting pointers from this book as I progress through it.

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During the initial stage of potty training, we bought a potty chair from Kiddy Palace for Little Edison. This potty chair is a standalone product that is completely separated from our toilet. Thus, it is more accessible and quickly reached by Little Edison without much assistance from us.

The only disadvantage of using a potty chair is the cleaning part – which we can’t simply flush that “pee” or “poop” down the toilet. We also have to clean and sanitize the potty chair frequently as Little Edison gets up close and personal with it few times a day.

Few months later, he turned this potty chair into a toy. He asked the Grandfather to attach a string on the handle and pull him as he sat on the chair. He will giggle happily when the Grandfather pulls him on his potty chair and walks around the house.

During the interim period, the Grandmother offered him a small plastic mug for him to urinate in it. When he needs to urinate, he will pull down his pants, hold the mug under his penis and urinate into the mug. When he is done, he will pour his urine into the toilet bowl himself. He can do it very well, except once an accident happened – he ran too fast to the toilet and at the end, he splashed the urine all over the floor!

Obviously, the plastic mug is not a practical solution. We moved on to a potty seat instead. The potty seat (picture) is a smaller seat that fits on top of our regular toilet seat.

It feels more like a real toilet seat. Thus, I’m confident that the transition from potty seat to the toilet seat will be easier at the later stage. The waste can be easily disposed as we can just flush them away. It’s definitely cleaner. In addition, it’s portable, easily stored away and takes up little space in the bathroom.

The disadvantage is that it is a little too high and Little Edison is unable to plant his feet on the floor. We need to help him to climb up the toilet seat and ensure that he is seated safely during the ‘process’.

Nonetheless, this potty seat proved to be a good buy for us. Little Edison loves it so much that he doesn’t allow us to remove his potty seat from the bathroom. So there it is – his potty chair is placed nicely in our common bathroom – solely for his use!

Read more about our potty training methods HERE.

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Daddy V was very free last night. He took his toy gun and eagerly wanted to teach Little Edison how to handle a gun. However, Little Edison showed no interest and he went to play with my Hello Kitty instead. Daddy V was shocked and he said absolutely no to Hello Kitty.

What do you think?

In my humble opinion, there is no gender specific toy. I will allow Little Edison to play with whatever he wants to play with, as long as the toys are safe. I always model a gender neutral behavior at home. I will never limit my child’s horizons simply because of our adult’s preconceived notions about what a boy or a girl should do.

Daddy V somewhat feels that I “feminize” our son by buying him softies and kitchen set. When I put on my make-up, Little Edison will stand next to me and observe how I do it. When I paint my toe nails, he proudly says his favorite color is purple. But it doesn’t alarm me though. It doesn’t mean that he will grow up to be a future fashion queen.

Little Edison likes to play with kitchen set than gun because he is more familiar with the kitchen utensils that are also available in our home kitchen. He develops interest towards Hello Kitty because of me – I’m a big fan of Hello Kitty! He also likes to play with toy cars and busses because he has seen them on the road. I spend a lot of time with him and I can understand him.

If your daughter likes to play with toy tool set, it doesn’t mean that she will go to engineering school when she grows up. If your son likes to dress-up, it doesn’t mean that he will go to fashion school either. Be fearless and encourage our child to follow his or her dream. Understand and accept our child’s desires, interests and dreams.

Well, I start to wonder… If Little Edison wants a Barbie doll in future, what will be Daddy V’s reaction? Ha! That’s a tricky one!

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One of my fondest childhood memories is reading story books in the school library. I was thrilled when I received my first library card. I visited the library after school everyday. I would borrow some of the story books to read at home too. My love for reading slowly established when I was young – largely due to the encouragement from my parents.

I want to nurture a love of reading in Little Edison too. This is my very-simple plan:

Step 1: Make reading part of our daily routine (in-progress)

• I picked up a story books to read with Little Edison every night. One of his favorites is the Dora Phonics Reading Program that contains 12 story books about Dora’s adventures.

Step 2: Have plenty of books in the house (in-progress)

• The expert says that books should be integrated into our family’s life every day. Keep books in the bathroom, on the bedside table, in the living hall etc.

Step 3: Visit the library or book store regularly

• I plan to bring Little Edison to the library soon. I want to encourage his interest for books by allowing him to choose the books that he wants to read. Reading for pleasure should be our ultimate goal.

Step 4: Be a reader myself

• One of the best ways to nurture a love of reading in Little Edison is to be an active reader myself. Oh well, let’s pick up a good book now and be a good role model to Little Edison.

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I’m really looking forward to that one week term break in mid March. No more dragging Little Edison out of his bed, packing his stuff, rushing to school and trying to stay on top of school-related matters. I desperately need a break. And I really hate his school hours that start so early in the morning (at 8am). I wish it can be 8:30am or even 9am.

I received a surprise phone call from his form teacher yesterday. She gave me a quick update on Little Edison’s progress at school. Generally, he is doing alright at school despite the occasional tearful meltdowns in the morning when I leave him. However, there are several areas that I need to pay attention and the teacher discussed with me in details.

Some of the drawbacks of being an only child are apparent in his behavior at school such as; he is overly dependent on his teachers to do things for him, rather than trying to do on his own. I guess it’s because he is too used to having a helper at home who attends to him 24/7. He is also very fussy with food; he spits them out on the floor if he doesn’t like the food.

One issue that really took me by surprise is his lack of verbal communications with the teachers and classmates. The teacher pointed to me that he will express his happiness and anger by facial expressions, rather than verbal. On the contrary, he is quite talkative at home. He will repeat whatever we say and expand his own vocabulary. To us, he is a very cheerful and expressive little boy.

When she talked about toilet-training, it horrified me even more because we always thought that Little Edison is well-trained in this area. He will communicate with us whenever he wants to urinate. Apparently, the teacher is expecting more than that. She expects him to be able to pull his pants up and down with ease in the toilet when he wants to urinate. Can a 2.5 years old toddler do that? I wonder.

The teacher also wants us to put on underwear on Little Edison. This means that he has to pull down two pieces of clothing – pants and underwear altogether. Again, can a 2.5 years old toddler do that? It’s really a huge challenge for me to train him in this area. At home, we will do it for him. But now, it’s time to let him learn do all his ‘business’ on his own. Not forgetting, we also need to train him to wash his hands, dry them and flush the toilet after every ‘business’.

I started to doubt my parenting abilities after the conversation with his teacher. If the other children are so independent, why our Little Edison is lagging behind? Is it because we pamper him too much at home? I think we are too used to provide everything to him, rather than to let him do things on his own.

Seriously, I need to come up with an improvement plan very soon. This is going to be my homework this weekend.

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