Parenting toddler

Kieran has started to show his character and temper.

He's a very active child who's interested to learn every single thing he sees or hears. You only need to say it once and he gets it into his brain, and even very long after, he'll repeat it back to you. His inference skills are great too. He's also bilingual in Chinese and English, and he could show me he knows "open" and "kai" means the same thing. Although he is active, his attention span is good. He could concentrate on learning for a long time and has a great thirst to learn everything around him. It's quite easy to teach him things like names of objects, description of objects, and explain to him concepts which sounds rather difficult for a toddler. It may seem complicated but it seems that he understood the concepts. He would say or show in simple ways that he understood what we are trying to tell him.

But he can be really aggressive. He shows his anger by scratching your face or biting you. He said he wants milk milk but my mother told him "No no." and immediately, his face shows a determined look, and he reached out to scratch her face. Few days ago, I also refused to give him something he wants and he quickly held my arm and bite it. If he couldn't reach me and I refused to give him what he wants, he'll lie flat, face down on the floor and beat the floor with his hands, kick his legs and cry angrily. This is what we call throwing tantrums isn't it?! How do we guide him to release his anger and frustration in a constructive manner? How do we encourage good habits in him?

Its amazing how his character and habit resemble my husband's when he was young. My hubby told me he used to throw tantrums this way - in shopping malls. He also is pretty smart in that he knew his mother's weakness and used it against her. In this case, she was afraid of embarrassment and would give in to him if he throw tantrums in public. For my Kieran, he knew I was soft-hearted, so if said no to milk milk, he would change a softer strategy and said "walk walk" and held my hand to ask me to walk with him to the bedroom, where he would pull me to the bed, lie down, give me a cute hopefully and happy look and request for milk milk, please! Sigh... And the worse is, when I tried to put him to bed, he would suddenly say "poo poo" and wants me to bring him to his potty. He knew after several trials that if we are putting him to sleep, the lights are off and there's no chance for him to play, but if he says he wants to poo, we will immediately bring him to the potty and switch on the lights and he could look around and then play in the play room (which is where the potty is) after that. I found out the poo poos are fake because once he got to his playroom, he would roam around excitedly and forgot he wants to poo, and when we keep introducing the potty to him, he'll say "no no." and went on to play his favourite toys. These smart people knows how to manipulate the situation to their advantages! In terms of diet too, Kieran loves good food, and he likes green stems of vegetables, like my hubby did when he was a kid. Kieran would insist on having the stems and spit out if we attempt to feed him the leaves. But I'm glad at least he accepts vegetables. He's a super fussy eater.

Parenting... parenting... It is really not easy, and with a second one inside me, making tired and nauseous at times, it's even more difficult.

Last night at 3am, I felt a tiny but obvious little jab at my palm when I placed it on my tummy. I thought it must be Caitlin! But I can't be sure because after all, she's only 3 months (13 weeks) now. Could I start feeling her movements so early? I tried to feel it again and press down on my tummy but no more. I hope to feel her again soon :)