My little helper

Jie jie wasn't in the best behaviour this afternoon (still the same, starting with "I can't chew my food" and soon "I can't finish"..). Fine. And then she went around on her scooter, knocking into the baby rocker with ER in it and insisted ER was in her way. She got another session of warning. The last straw came when she wanted to do something which she couldn't do coz she got upset not succeeding. She then threw it on the ground and started kicking in frustration. Bad! So she got time out.

I used to hold onto the door knob during time out, partly coz I didn't want her to come out on her own, and partly coz I didn't want her locking herself inside (I'd half turn the knob so she will not be able to lock the door). Since we came home, I tried not holding the door and realised she would not attempt to escape on her own (she's got time out only once since we came home and she didn't come out on her own, so I tried it today again).

And then after nearly 2 mins, she opened the door. I walked to her wanting to put her back in and saw that she peed on the floor -______-". She kept saying sorry and appeared really frightened. I was really really upset by then (the anger built up with each incident and then the pee on the floor!!!), took her to the bathroom to wash her up, and then couldn't bring myself to talk to her, no matter how she apologised. I'm a bad mummy.

Then Carriermen came to check aircon leakage, followed by the part time domestic helper soon after. It was good coz they took my mind off being upset with AN.

After cooling down, I asked AN to let me know if she needed to pee in future (and blaming myself for causing her the panic coz even if she needed to pee and told me, would I have taken her out to pee and put her back? Or? I seriously do not know, yet.) And of course, explained to her what she was being punished for when she was put away for time out.

Before naptime, AN told me: "Mummy, I needed to pee just now and I kept shouting 'I want to pee I want to pee' but you were naughty and didn't listen to me...". I seriously didn't hear her tell me she needed to pee (I was standing outside her door). Maybe I really wasn't listening.

Sigh...I mostly end up regretting things I do and words I used during times like these. AN must have felt traumatised coz she was shut in and helpless, and urgent. She was already being punished and wouldn't have done more to agitate me by peeing in her pants...What did I do? I just MADE her upset myself further, which wasn't what she wanted to do....and she had to face more fear and possibly more punishment.


Seriously, although she's behaving like many elder siblings after the recent birth of the new younger one, I'd say she's been a very sweet sister. She's just demanding that I do things for her more than usual but she also allows Mr Liow to help her so that "mummy's not too tired", and she'll constantly ask if "Mummy's still having pain down there", or if "Mummy's still having backache".

And the little things she'd do for Ethan...She'd go pat pat him when he cries (and very gently after our repeated reminders), and give him a toy each morning. She'd come hurry us to go carry him if we take too long and he's not pacified by her attempts to calm him down.

Again I wonder, what am I doing as a mummy? Someday I'm going to break this gentle spirit in her... :(

I apologised to her and she smugly told me how naughty I was to be speaking so loudly and that "you always beat me like that and it's wrong", which I DID NOT! From the time she started misbehaving, I've not laid a finger on her more than 5 times! She realised her mistake and changed her statement to: "You cannot beat me ok? That's a naughty thing to do.." Oh well, I will not, if time out bring sense back into her.

So, anyway, this big jie jie was a little busy this morning coz ER is going through growth spurt (his 3rd week today) and demanding milk more often than past couple of weeks. AN managed to calm him down by gently patting his tummy a few times since the last weekend and she thinks she can do that to help us when we are busy. When it didn't work for him this morning, she thought he might be cold and tried covering him with a blanket, and then when that failed too, she gave him her finger to suckle on.

My sweet sweet helper..