2 Front Teeth

Yesterday, at 6 years, 9 months and 19 days old, KK lost his first milk teeth. Well, to be exact, it was the first 2 front teeth of the lower jaw. They both dropped out about 1 hour apart.




His teeth had been wobbily and shaky for a while. We were already prepared that it will be anytime soon before he no longer has a complete set of milk teeth and joins the company of some of his 'boh-gay' classmates. So we'd taken a few photos of him with his mouth wide open. Not the most artistic of shots, I admit, but it serves our purpose of remembering his set of little baby teeth.

Now you see it...

I was actually looking forward to this day, cos the teeth was so wobbly it's affecting his eating. He can't pull at a chicken wing wholeheartedly and even his favourite inari sushi has to be stuffed in through the corner of his mouth. So when he showed me his little tooth, wrapped in a piece of tissue, after he came back from his gym class, I asked him how he felt. "Nothing." he replied nonchalantly. It was with this same nonchalance that he spitted out his second teeth during dinner 30 mins later. There isn't any tooth fairy stories either. I know this boy will not buy it and I'll end up with more questions than I can answer, so I'll rather not waste my breath.

Now you don't...

The loss of these significant first teeth brings to me the same emotions as the appearance of them more than 6 years ago. The feeling of pride in him reaching another milestone in his life. The kind of feeling that all mothers will have when their child grows up, day by day, inch by inch, S size to L size.

Battle of the Thumb

I must update on the status of my ongoing 'battle' over reclaiming 'sovereignty' of my thumb from XX at night. I think I can almost declare victory. For the last month or so, I am able to withdraw my thumb from his grasp whenever I want to without any form of protest or resistance from him. This means no more contorted positions and awkward twistings of my arm muscles as I sleep and no more twiddling of my thumb. A better sleep for me in general.

Unfortunately, this doesn't mean that he is sleeping independently on his own - yet. Instead, he lowers his standard and settles for contact with alternative parts of my body as his source of comfort. So I get a leg on my thorso, an arm over my neck and even little fingers in my hair some nights. But I can live (or sleep) with that so I reckon it's still a vast improvement.

This breakthrough came about one day as I was reading a short story about a parent who over indulge her child. I wondered if I was over indulging XX in this aspect. I've always been half-hearted about taking away his 'source of comfort'. Just like some children can't sleep without their pacifier or a favourite bolster, XX looks so contented and secure when he holds my thumb to sleep. Of course, I must admit I also feel good that I can provide so much peace and calm to him. But I finally reasoned that by taking away my thumb, I'm not actually doing him any harm. It's not that kind of act that will result in psychological disorders when he's an adult. In fact, this is the first step to sleeping independently, an essential development in growing up.

So that night, I told XX firmly 'no more hold hand' and hid my hand away from him. Of course, he protested, but not too fiercely. I ignored him and literally turned my back to him. After less than 5 minutes of whining and kicking me with no response, he laid down on my pillow next to me and went back to sleep. The same thing happened in the morning and again 2 more times the next night. But each episode lasted less than a few minutes before he succumbed to his tireness and went back to sleep again. Since then, no more problems. He'll still try to search for the hand so sometimes I have to hide it between my thighs or somewhere he can't reach. It's quite funny to see him feeling around for it. Then when he can't find them he'll settle for hugging my arm or putting his leg on me. My boy still needs a piece of Mummy ... :-)

How Fast They Grow Up!

I finally got down to to some backing up of our pictures and videos into our portable hard disk today. This is usually a time where I will also open up some old folders to view a couple of past photos and take a walk down memory lane.





This time, I watched a series of photo clips on our 2005 holiday to Melbourne. Yiyi, James, Gong Gong and PoPo were with us. XX was not yet born then. Take a look at KK, slightly more than 3 years old, at the Sunnyridge Strawberry Farm. This year, we made another trip there with KF (KauFu) and took a similar photo of him. How different he looks!

From our photographs of him at his Singapore Kindergarten, KK still had that babyish look up till last year. But he's lost it now. PoPo had commented that his recent school portrait looks very "lo zhik" (matured). Can't believe my little KK is now no more a little boy.




That's the ironical part of being parents. At the same time that we want to retain their babyish cute looks, we also want them to grow up and be more matured in their thinking and more independent in their behaviour. While we encourage them to be more independent, we also love to snuggle with them in bed at night. Sometimes I miss KK when he was little. But if he stayed little all the time (physically or mentally), then something must be wrong. I wouldn't want it that way either.




Anyway, there's no stopping time and our children are growing up even as I'm typing this. The moral of the story is to spend as much time with your kids as they are growing up and take lots of pictures!