Life (with my Toddler) as a Musical

I really love spending time with my little one!

Her day usually starts with a smile, greeting me good morning.  I then tell her to stretch.  And then she says "stretch, stretch like a giraffe" .. followed by a "swing, swing like an elephant" (elephant swings the trunk).  She then makes monkey sounds.  And I sing "eh eh eh eh eh .. try everything".  Yeah!  It's the song from movie Zootopia. She is not familiar with the movie though.  But she associates the song "Try Everything" with those animal movements because of her dance class.  She then says "Teacher! Teacher!".  I think she really misses her class.

After letting her play with her toys a bit, I tell her that we will "wee wee".  We are on the process of potty training.  We only had one success .. and a big one at that!  She "poo poo" on her potty yesterday morning, after she told me "Mama, poo poo".  We are so happy!  For her "wee wee", she usually pees while eating .. haha.  There's no indication though .. we just see it.  Even if her diaper or underwear is wet, it seems she's not that uncomfortable.  Ever since she was a baby, she does not cry with wet diaper.  Nowadays, it seems things are normal although her underwear is wet.  I guess potty training will take long .. oh, well!

For breakfast, she usually eats just enough .. just enough apples or oranges or grapes, cheese, eggs, sometimes cereal, fish or chicken.  I just hope she gets to eat more as she gets older.  Then there's juice or yogurt and water.

I then tell in a sing-song voice "Take a bath! Take a bath!" and then she sings back "Take a bath doo doo doo doo doo doo" to the tune of Baby Shark.  Same tune as she sings "Wash your face doo doo doo doo doo".  Then the little sings "Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes" or "My Toes, my Knees, My Shoulder my Head."

After the bath, I ask her what's next and she replied "Brush teeth!".  While brushing her teeth (or attempting to), she sings "And I'm brushing my teeth and it's so much fun.  I never let the water run. No! I never let the water run".  It's a song from Barney.

While I dress up and dry my hair, she watches Elmo, Dora or any Disney Cartoon. So that means she either sings the Elmo Song, the Dora Explorer opening song or the Hot Dog Song or any Disney song for that matter.  I sing with her and sometimes, dance with her.

As we drive towards my mom house, the little one is strapped in a car seat and she asks "What's that Mama?" pointing at cars, trucks, buildings and trees.  And if I say trees, she then sings the color song " .. Green is the color of trees and lots of things that grow ..."

I then drop her off at Nana's house and then I let her play.  I sometimes can leave her without crying if Auntie Hanna is around.  But today, Auntie Hanna was not around and she wants me to go with her to see the chickens.  Since I already booked a taxi, I had to leave her crying (Oh, how my heart ached!).  But if I had a car and she cries, I take time to stay with her until she is okay.

By the time I get back to her in the evening, she sings random songs every now and then.  She sometimes dances and performs in front of Nana and Grandpa.  And enumerates our names .. hehe

When we leave Nana's house, we look up and see the stars and of course, she sings "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".

After giving her a bath, I carry her and she sings "The sun has gone to bed and so must I ..." But she is not yet going to sleep though.  She just sings it because I carry her like a baby.

We then read some books.  Most of the times, it is Papa who read her books or tells stories.  She points out the alphabet book.  As we reach R for ran, she sings "Rain, rain go away" while it's the "Mister Sun" song when we reach letter S.

As we go to sleep, we sing a bit and I ask her what to sing - of course, there's "Are you Sleeping, Are You Sleeping, Brother John", "Rock-a-Bye Baby", "Wise Men Say (Fools Rush In)" and "Dandansoy".  We then pray.

There are times she would not immediately go to sleep and would even ask for hide and seek or play shadows.  But there are also times where she just stays and lays in bed, do some acrobatic moves moving from here and there until she eventually falls asleep.

Yup!  That's my life with my dear toddler, whom I love so much!

My Precious

I know .. long time, no post.

The past few weeks, I have been contemplating of writing again.  It has been a long time since my last post and I have so many thoughts going on inside this brain of mine.

Most of the thoughts actually pertain to my daughter, who just turned two years old a few weeks ago.

During her first weeks, I set up an Instagram account and hoping I could post once a day about her.  But I was not able to sustain it.  There were days that I was not able to take a picture of her.  And I have not posted for a long time now.

I have not also been writing in my gratitude journal for a really long time.  Before I was married, I was more or less consistent with it.  It dwindled when I got married and was totally out of the picture when I gave birth and moved houses.  I could have documented memorable moments of my little one on a daily basis but I just did not find time for it.

As days go by, I have realized that there were great memorable moments created by my daughter that we were not able to document .. we were just there living the moment with her!  I would love to have it documented but most of the times I am just caught in the moment that I forget getting my phone or that I would not want to distract my daughter just because I was getting my phone.  There are even times that my daughter would swipe my hand holding the cellphone or she would just say no if I try to take a video or picture of her.  At times, she would want to get the cellphone for herself.  Of course, there are times that she is much too willing to have her selfie taken or to have her performance video .. but not all the time.

At 2 years old (25 months), she can easily identify  the whole alphabet.  She even knows that an inverted M is a W (and she did this all by herself).  She could identify words beginning with the letters of the alphabet.  She could identify her name when written.  She knows the names of her papa and mama and the nicknames of her nana and grandpa.  She can count up to 20 and easily identify numbers 1 to 10 and some of the numbers from 11 to 20.  She could now identify colors, although this really took some time and we jokingly said that she may be color blind.  But we were able to dispel it when she was not consistent in erroneous identification of colors.  She can now fill in the blanks to the lyrics of Beauty and the Beast and to the intro of Can You Feel the Love Tonight.  She can dance to these songs.  She sings Do Re Mi and So Long Farewell.  She knows the words to Can't Help Falling in Love and You are my Sunshine.  She can also mouth some words from the songs of Frozen - Let It Go, Love is an Open Door and For the First Time in Forever.  She can sing a lot of songs and nursery rhymes.  She can identify Mickey and Friends and the Disney Characters.  

Of course, she learned it because we exposed it to her.  We read to her, we converse with her, we sing with her, we play with her and we watch TV with her.  I first noticed her fascination with alphabets when she was watching TV intently.  I later on realized that she was memorizing it.  She rarely uses the cellphone for youtube and other apps though.  And we do not have an Ipad .. hehe.  She watches TV but we really try to balance it.  

We do painting and coloring.  She sometimes colors the walls and the floors .. haha.  She feeds the fishes and plays with the dogs.  She plays a lot with the dogs and she does not get terrified to get cuddly with them.  We play hide and seek and cooking, which she calls "Coking" .. bisaya jud .. haha.  

She tells JJ to go upstairs when JJ is staying on her bed.  She tells JJ to go outside if she does not want to play with JJ.  But she said thank you JJ when she was staring at the toy Uncle JJ gave her.  She plays with JJ when Auntie Hanna is not around ..haha.  She tells Auntie Hanna to eat pizza.  She cries when Auntie Hanna leaves.  And also when Mama leaves.  But she does not cry when mama leaves and Auntie Hanna is around.

She is the sweetest.  She gives me random kisses and hugs.  She says I love you and gives a warm hug everytime we sing the I Love You song.  She is generous with her sorry's and thank you's. 

These past few days, we have no helper so I try to stay at the house whenever no one is available to look after her.  We have our afternoon walks near Nana's house.  She loves running downwards at the garage.  I let her play with the rocks, with her shouting Darna every now and then.  We had lots of pang-commercial moments  .. if only there was camera out there taking a video of our time.

Yes, my world revolves around my daughter.  And I love her so much :)