Suzette's Parenting and Breastfeeding Blog

Until now, Ian is still very slow in speech. He doesn’t call anyone, even if you ask him to.

But that is with one exception.

When I say, “Ian, call Mama”
Ian, “MAMA” (loud and clear)

Of course, that doesn’t work every time. If he is occupied with toys and games, he will not response. But 50% of the time works.

And another 30% of the time, I have to pretend to be angry or tell him, “Ok, don’t want to call never mind loh”, and then turn away. Immediately, or after 10 seconds, he would call out loudly, “MAMA”.

I feel so good about it. My heart really melts every time he calls me.

He seldom responds to other callings. If you ask him, “Ian, call gong gong”, “…”
But for “Daddy”, he also likes to respond – probably 20-50% of the time?

Sometimes at night when we sleep, he would call me, “Mama, Mama, Mama…”, non-stop until he finally falls asleep. I have to answer, “Har, har, har, har…”, sometimes I got so happy that I would just jump up and kissed him and tell him, “Oh, yes Ian, I love you…”.

Very touching feeling…

Noticed lately (as in past 2 months) I have been writing negative things about Ian. I have been using words like: fussy, naughty, noisy, yelling, crying, screaming, etc.

I don’t know how Ian became like this. I have not been spoiling him, but he behaves like a spoilt child.

After the last Karambunai trip, DH’s colleague told him in the office:
“Ei, I think you better start teaching your son now. He is now using cry to get his things, and if continues to be like this he will not tell you properly what he wants. Instead he will continue to cry and yell…”

This is really a shameful statement to the both of us, like telling us Ian doesn’t have 家教. But I totally agree with his colleague, and am very glad that he tells DH about it. I am extremely happy with that, coz I was afraid too, that DH would be joining MIL/SIL to spoil Ian.

In fact, I really hate it when Ian wanted something he doesn’t request in a proper manner. I can see other kids, even though cannot speak yet, can point to the things they want and make some sound to show they want.

But in Ian’s case, he points and cry, “ehhh ehhh ehhh…” or yell, “AARRRGGGHHHH!!!!” and coupled with jumps, reddened and angry face. And he is impatient, can’t even wait for a minute to get his stuff.

I tried to correct this, by not compromising if he cries/yells, and only give him if he stops crying. That sometimes works, especially if he is home alone with me. He is a very good boy when there are only the two of us at home.

But unfortunately, he is not 100% brought up by me. In-law’s family can really spoil him. Whenever he cries, immediately he gets his things, or a substitute. He can suddenly cry and lay on the floor, kicking his legs, and you just don’t know what he wants.

Whenever this happens, FIL/SIL/MIL will come in and ask in a very patient and nice tone, “har, Ian, what’s wrong, what do you want?” And if he continues kicking his legs lying down, they will offer him some toys or try playing with him to make him happy. If it were he and I at home, I would just let him cry and kick until he is satisfied, and then he will come and hug me later.

After the Karambunai trip, DH couldn’t tolerate it anymore and told MIL not to spoil Ian again. I think MIL is okay, but the problem is with SIL (sister-in-law).

After hearing me complaining to my sister over the phone, SIL suddenly sort of like lectured me, quite loudly:
“Aiyah, he is still young lah, just give him what he wants…”

And then MIL likes to use bluffing and scaring method. Instead of telling Ian that the DVD player is not his toy, MIL tells, “Aiyer, what is that? Gak Gak (something bites) there.” Then Ian would quickly leave because he doesn’t know what kind of Gak Gak is hidden there. It works, but according to the experts, it is a wrong method.

It is so hard to be parents. When someone tells you that you should discipline your child, someone else then tells you that you do too much. Can I just do it my way? Har?

This is the last episode of my Karambunai Trip. Actually I don’t quite like to write this kind of topic, quite boring ler…

Anyway, this was a short day. That day we woke up quite late, coz we were just too tired and got a bit used to the noisy birds and neighbors.

We rushed ourselves to the breakfast. After finished eating, we spent the rest of the time at the beach and saw the others riding horses. It was quite fun seeing them ride the horse along the beach. We took quite some photos there. I couldn’t ride the horse, due to my pregnancy and also need to take care of Ian.

Wah, Ian was so brave, he touched the horses’ head, and got so excited that he BIT the horses hard-hard on the face (well, for his strength, considered ok lah).

While waiting for them to return, we just walked around and taking photo. Here is a photo I posted yesterday. Many said Ian looks 3 years old.

After that, DH and his gang went and ride on that thing (sail?). I brought Ian back to the room to clean and pack up.

We left at 12:30pm, and had our lunch at the airport. Air Asia’s terminal has nothing much that we could do. The wait was boring.

Anyway, Ian was still very attracted by the airplane. He still jump up and down, looking out at the windows all the time. Such an active baby…

OK, now share with you a photo taken on Sunday morning, before we left the resort…

Ian looks much older than his age (18 months), right? He really enjoyed that thing, he must be imagining himself sailing on the sea… LOL

On the 2nd day, very early in the morning, at around 5am I was woke up by this noisy birds singing. I couldn’t believe that these birds are so loud and talkative. It is a very nice sound, if you are not woke up at that hour. Ian woke up at 5:30am, and finally slept back.

At 8am, no way we could continue sleeping coz not only the birds, the neighbors also very noisy – the loud sound of them opening and closing their doors, the heavy steps etc. But it was also good to wake up early coz you don’t want to just sleep in a resort like this, right?

After settling Ian and having our breakfast, we took some photos with Ian, and saw the horseback riding. Probably due to the late night on day-1, he yawned many times at even 11am. So, I had no choice but to bring him back to the room, and slept with him (I couldn’t sleep, of course).

At around 1pm, DH felt so bored and complaint that he was taking photos of sceneries without any of us, and decided to wake Ian up. Poor Ian, when we brought him out to walk around, even strangers told us that he looked sleepy and tired.

Anyway, when we brought him walking along the beach, unlike LLS, Ian wasn’t afraid of the sand at all. “Dirty” is never a word that can refrain him from doing things he wants.

He walked bare footed on the sand, picked up and played with some sand, and put his sandy fingers into his mouth! We had to stop him, and distract his attention to the seawater. We let him walk along the shallow water area. He was very excited seeing the waves hit his legs. And he told his daddy, “sit, sit” – he wants to sit in the water!

We didn’t let him, coz it was time to have lunch already. The restaurant clears all food by 2pm (as we were told).

An hour after lunch, we put up all Ian’s swim gear, and brought him to the pool. The children’s swimming pool is as huge as an adult’s. Ian just walked in the pool and didn’t want our company. But he just walked and not really floating, so we have decided to transfer him into the adult’s pool. Wah! He just wouldn’t let us do it. After around 5 attempts, then we successfully transferred him, but already got a lot of attentions. He just yell and cried and yell… horrible sounds…

Anyway, after the hour+ spending in the pool, we went to the beach again whilst DH joined his colleagues to play beach volleyball. Ian and I enjoyed the seawater. We just sat there in front of the wave, and let the waves hit us. Ian also played the sand with his legs and hands. It was so fun. Too fun to forget. At first Ian sat next to me. The waves kept hitting him so strongly that he kept losing his balance. Then, I let Ian sat in front of me, in between my legs. This time no matter how strong the waves, he has my support – never fell down. It was very 温馨 (warm).

Unfortunately DH was buy with his volleyball, didn’t take any photos of us.

After that, we shower and Ian had another nap for an hour plus.

At night, we had barbeque dinner. DH told me that it costs RM95 (include tax) per person! The food was lousy and very little. What did they serve? Chicken, beef, lamb, satay, fish – one type each. And then fried rice, baked potato, corn, very salty broccoli soup, veggie. As of dessert, they only have papaya, pineapple and watermelon. They didn’t even give proper sotong and prawns.

Anyway, the only benefit you have at the barbeque dinner is, they have some native cultural performance and followed by some guitarists’ performance. But these guitarists are so ‘pigeon eyes’, they only went to the angmoh’s tables. They never came to ours!

That’s all our 2nd day in Karambunai. Sounds very little things done, but I was exhausted due to taking care of Ian. :p

Also read the overview and day 1.