toddler — Tatter Scoops

Weely Roundup – 4th Week of August

23 Aug posted by Maureen

August almost come to an end, how crazy is that?

I haven’t been online much since last week thanks to the nasty cold Lil’ A is having that caused a scary spiking fever for two days in a row. Not only that I think the darn cold made a hit on me too. With a sick toddler and a pounding headache, staying unplugged was the way to go.

Anyway here are some updates of our lives besides the darn cold.

If you happen to be at one of the 5 stars hotels in Jakarta – you might be seeing this picture. Yep, that’s Lil’ A picture on a banner. His uncle who has been abusing his nephew’s pictures ‘borrowed’ some for his hotel’s birthday package promotion. The original picture was taken by me on Lil’ A’s second birthday party back in Florida.
Lil’ A’s pictures also made a cameo appearance on Time Out Jakarta magazine for their August edition. No, he’s not doing professional modeling or some sorts. They just got interested in using his pictures.
My father is recovering greatly after they did some laser on his eye. If you remember, he had some problems with one of the blood vessel on his right eye and the doctor suggested laser treatment. He’s still in Johannesburg right now but recovering really well. Thank you for all your supports and prayers.
Last week I had my first guest post over at Our Mommyhood. Do check it out, it’s my first guest post on an English based site so I was pretty nervous about it.
My photos for The Holiday Inn Photo Competition are still up for voting on Facebook until September 12. We’ve been getting pretty good votes in, so if you had vote thank you very much and if you care to vote please follow this link and here’s a screen shot on how to find the tiny vote button. This mama can use some getaway to Bali!

From the toddlerhood phase: The boy has been saying that one magic line “I don’t like…“(fill the dots accordingly). Usually it will come out during meal times. “I don’t like veggies!” followed by mouth shut. Can someone tell me that this too shall pass?

How was your week? Did you guys do anything fun on your weekend?

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Filed Under: Blogging

Pickin’ My Battles

16 Aug posted by Maureen

Any mother of a toddler – well maybe all mothers – will know that we are constantly have to pick our battle when it comes to our children, right?

Dealing with a very strong headed little boy who’s not even 4 – he’ll 4 soon enough on December.

It’s a constant bargaining, tugging and bending…

When it comes to pickin’ my battles I had surrender when it comes to these:

Scenario: Bath times. Lil’ A: “Don’t wash my hair!” His Mommy: Sniffin’ on his curls if there’s no noticeable smells then the shampoo will be put back in the shelf.
Upon going places, he will pick his own shoes and often times will pick his Thomas boots – even when it’s not raining outside. Even when he already picked on a spiderman t-shirt and a stripes short. Talk about fashion hit and run!
When he wants to strip himself half naked because it’s too hot. Hey, who could blame him! I would do the same thing if it won’t be such a scary view!
When he insisted that no one should touch his creation of block tower. What can I say, he’s an architect/engineer in the making!
When he just wants to listen to his Toy Story from the DVD while he’s busy playing with his train. God only knows if that DVD player can scream it surely will. He just needs the sounds!
When we went out to eat with relatives. One of them is slurping their noodle so the toddler thinks it’s fun to do the same. Breathe in-breathe out tried to ignore the sounds. Hey, besides you can’t correct it in-front of the perpetrator right?
When he thinks it’s more fun to break that free crayon he got at a restaurant to pieces after he’s bored drawing. He made a mess but oh well…

These are just some that I can think of but there’s been plenty of backin’ down on my part that I failed to remember – blame mommy brain – but yeah, once in awhile it is definitely necessary to pick your own battles when it comes to toddlerhood.

28 Comments
Filed Under: Single Mommyhood, Toddlerhood

You Know You’re A Mommy To A Toddler

3 Aug posted by Maureen

When you found yourself saying/doing these things:

“Please stop touching your pee-pee. It’s not going anywhere, Mister!“
Amazed by their ability to tuned you out when you tell them something but somehow they always managed to hear you when you hit your foot on a table and grunted “Dang it!” then later echoing it like a mantra.
You find your self saying “Oh my God!” a lot seeing the mess your little tornado able to create in your living room and of course you will hear someone saying “Oh my God!” too in the future.
You will hear so many excuses to avoid bed time from “I’m still hungry, Mommy“, “I have to go pipis*” down to straight out “but I’m not tired!“
They are brutally honest – no sugar coating. They’ll tell you in the public rest room you’re in have unpleasant smell or even better, they’ll cover their nose and mouth saying “Eww…it’s stinky in here, Mommy” in front of a store owner who you hope have no slight understanding of English words! Same thing applied to human odor!
They use their sweetness power – hugs and kisses – abundantly when they want something from you such as an extra mini toblerone chocolates or more snack.
Recognize those teenager’s infamous deep sigh? On some cases – like mine, it starts early. You tell them to go clean up and they can produce a whining sounds and sighs similar to the ones from their future 13 years old and older self.
Your heart melt after your toddler went to time out and gave you a hug saying “I’m done crying…I’m sorry, Mommy“.
Your heart will melt even more when they sings “Hallelujah” with both arms raised.
Their kisses and big tight hugs will brighten your day no matter how crappy it has been.
You will cherish those tender moments when they just crawled on your lap and snuggled so close you can smell their sweet no-longer-a-baby-scents because usually they’ll be too busy running around doing things by themselves.
You will silently wipe your tears on the first day of school.

Note: *pipis = peeing

42 Comments
Filed Under: Toddlerhood

Weekly Roundup – August Edition

2 Aug posted by Maureen

August already? Geez, time really does flies way too fast huh?

Nothing much happened last week other than these:

Our internet has one too many hiccups like I posted on my weekly virtual detox. It’s back up and running now so I’m crossing my fingers. This made me fell 2 days behinds on my 31DBBB tasks, I’m also behind on catching up with the two favorites memes I love, Wordless Wednesday and Friday Flip-offs.

Last Thursday I got to meet two bloggy friends, Anita McKay of Finally Woken who is in town from Pert, Australia. Another friend is Ivy from About Ivy who by the way have a really sexy Mark 5 camera that made Anita and I drooled We had lunch with two other Indonesian bloggers. One is Dian from Pelopor – a really funny lady with a sense of humor that I just love! Her son was the subject of our attentions most of the time during lunch because he’s just so adorable. Another blogger is actually a writer, Santi who graciously giving us her book “Anak-anak Multibahasa” (Multilingual Children). She’s one smart cookie who gladly shared her tips in raising multilingual children in a really nice way, you won’t feel lectured! Had a really great time meeting these ladies!

On the toddlerhood front: The little Master managed to completely torn apart one of his truck on Sunday. He’s been notorious about taking toys apart. God only knows how many cars or motorbikes in this house without wheels left on them – which reminds me I need to go through his toy chest again. Check out his latest victim!

Tearing a truck apart

This week I’ll be a bit busy with catching up with friends who happens to be back in town. This should be fun

Have a great week ahead, friends!

19 Comments
Filed Under: Blogging

Weekly Round-up – Second Week of July

12 Jul posted by Maureen

Another week gone by too fast or at least that’s how it feels for me.

About ‘that girl‘, well I got plenty of curious questions about the girl I mentioned on my Friday Flip-offs, some of the comments I received totally crack me up. You guys are the best!

Oh please don’t put us there…I paid you with my own money.

This week marked that day Lil’ A discovered the joy of computer games. It started when DH bought him a Thomas The Tank Engine CD Room game then it went to Nick Jr’s website which he enjoys and I love that the games teaches age appropriate stuffs. I still can’t believe how quickly he knows where to click after we showed him once – well, okay I’m his Mommy so I’m biased.

Last week I had my fourth article up on Mommies Daily – an Indonesian moms website. This time I wrote about my review on CARES.

Last week I found out that Tatter Scoops was one of the featured Blogs over at Top Mommy Blogger, which I’m still so stoked about. If you could please vote by clicking the button I would love you oh and you could vote daily too.

Hope you will have a great week ahead!

6 Comments
Filed Under: Fun things

You Know You’re A Mom When

30 Jun posted by Maureen

Have seen this meme around for awhile but this is my first time joining in.

So here it goes…

You know you’re a mom when:

There’s a little person who will scream their heads off saying, demanding “Mommy, fix it!” continuously even after you begged them to wait until Daddy is home 0r any male figure show up. Yeah, like that will ever work! So you tried to do everything humanly possible to fix the darn train track, car, robot – and the list goes on…

There’s a little person that expect you to know how to put up such a complicated Hot Wheels track that Grandma just bought for her beloved grandson even when the box clearly marked 5 years+…

There’s a little person that doesn’t care if you haven’t wash your hair for 2-3 days (3 days is my limit!) or have any make-up on…they’d still attacked you with their big bear hugs and you love every minute of it.

There’s a little person who will expect you to play roughhousing with him after Daddy has been out of town for a few days even when your aunt flo is in town and your back feels like breaking.

There’s a little person who can’t stop talking so you asked him “Whose kid is this?” and then you were hit with the realization that he talks just as much as you does.

There’s a little person who’s been in training to say his parents name correctly and when asked “What’s your Mommy’s name” will answer “Mommy Lil’ A!”

There’s a little person that will demand you to decipher “That…that…that uuh uuh train!” when he wanted to watch The Polar Express! And you proudly put the right movie on when the whole house had no idea what movie your Little Master wants to watch.