Tuckshop Day (Rehearsal)

In conjunction with Tuckshop Day, Papa has opened a temporary shop to let Sophie practice buying with coins. We take a lot of things for granted, we realised. Without addition and subtraction or understanding of numbers in their tens and hundreds, money is a difficult concept to grasp. Thus, Sophie has to make do with whatever undertanding she has got about numbers. Anyhow, she was relentless during her tuckshop day activity, according to her teachers in school. She apparently "bought" 2 cups of corn and several pieces of fish cakes from the stalls and gobbled everything up. Of course the teachers returned her money ($2) but I guess it must have been a good experience for her.

Sisterhood

We are still having a challenging time adjusting to Alfee and Sophie's response to the little newcomer into our family. I suppose Sophie has been THE ONLY "baby" to us for the longest time so now both her territory and status are challenged by a tiny, helpless and noisy newborn. He has yet proven his worth (not much of a playmate or companion to her) and Papa & Mama seem to give entirely too much attention to him. And whenever she tried to get "close" and "personal" to him, Papa & Mama would quickly stop her (from squeezing his head or screaming in his ear for example).

Sophie is definitely trying hard to regain her power in our family. She would never allow herself to be excluded in any way. If you look hard enough, you can see her head on the right side of the picture (attempting to force her way into Papa's arms and Mama's line of camera vision.

In the end, we did take a nice picture of Papa and the kids. Of course, Sophie is naturally between Papa and Alfee (firming restrained by Papa's embrace). Meet the Loy members!

Sophie : " Why is Alfee wearing your shirt?" (to Papa)

Papa : " .... "

Mama : "... because Papa has no fashion sense?" (opps... my thoughts were too loud!)

Elephant

Sophie's home learning has came to a complete halt the moment Alfee popped. Fortunately, we could still rely on schooling for now. She came home with an elephant mask she made in school. She could name the tusks and trunk when I asked her. Amazing to me since I did not know trunk and tusks until I was more older. Lately, she was also able to identify the chinese characters "da4" and "xiao3" (big and small). She kept pointing them out to me in her books. A big accomplishment, considering how she used to understand and say nothing in Mandarin. I wish I could continue with teaching her but at the moment, I doubt it is possible. Not with Alfee still so young and Sophie still so emotionally unstable.

Baby No More

We have always seen and treated Sophie like our most precious baby. In a way, we must have impeded her development by not challenging her to behave and operate more like a preschooler. When Alfee is born, we started to see changes in her. She communicates more (partly because she has to in order to make others understand her needs and wants) to people. She also tries to display her abilities more (to get more attention) to us. Then we realised how big she has grown without our noticing. Today, the air-con guys came to service our units when she was asleep. I had to carry her and transfer her to our master bedroom (not too easy to carry 15 kg with a c-sect wound). I looked at my children as they slept side by side and thought to myself, "OMG! My baby girl is a baby no more!" Look at her build, her hands and her feet! She is a big girl now. And somehow, I felt a tinge of heartache because I knew then I have lost the moment with my baby girl forever.

Sophie Gets In Trouble

Sophie is definitely not like other little girls. She did not cry for me in school (except the day she fell) and she was very comfortable with the school environment since day one. Anyone mummy in the right frame of mind would feel tremendous pride and joy to have such an independent and well adapted little girl. However, I was never so optimistic, in fact I was waiting for the storm after the calm. And yes, the storm has arrived.

Today, her principal called me a couple of times on the phone because she had been "misbehaving" in school and she wanted to know if I would like them to carry through the punishment. Apparently, she spilled the beans during her Montessori session and refused to pick them up regardless of her teachers' reprimand, coaxing and even threats. She would rather skip her recess and her snack than to pick the beans up. Even when the teachers offerred to help and ended up picking them up for her, she taunted them by spilling the beans again and again. When they tried to talk to her, she changed the subject by directing them to her hair clip. She only complied when they told her she could not go home until she picked everything up (with my blessing, of course). Still, they cheated by helping her scoop up almost everything while she was not looking.

And on the very same day, she teased me hours earlier in the car with her pranks. She started by putting her finger in her mouth. That made me frown and I told her not to do it again. Grinning, she did it again, making a noisy sucking sound to draw my attention. When I turned around to glare at her, I found her little finger outside her mouth, at her lips. She did not put her finger in at all! She was pretending!!! I was so mad. When I recounted the incident to her principal, she realised how smart Sophie is and we definitely have a handful to deal with. We both agree that she has a tendency to tease and she is very strong-willed' (I say 'stubborn' but she prefers a more positive word).