What do you think about "Tiger Mummy"..?

Recently, Win has been sending Renzo to school every morning together with Ayeaye. And there are 2 times he shared with me that Renzo was greeted by his classmates, once was his Audrey jiejie, who often gets brightened up whenever she sees Renzo, and another time by another boy we do not even know the name. Unfortunately all our little one did, was to remain oblivious to his surroundings, and went straight to his chair, sat down happily while waiting for his breakfast to be served. Look at how he took off his shoes and socks, behaves like a king right?!

And he even "kidnapped" this cute pair of slippers Win bought for me and walking around the house as if he is really an Angry Bird... so much pride huh?!

Anyway, knowing that Renzo is someone who’s able to express himself pretty well in full sentences, I did not expect that he refuses to talk to people most of the time when he’s outside. I meant if he can’t even talk, of course I won’t feel this bad. I am guessing it is probably because we didn’t really enforce the rules at home. Just like we try to cultivate good habit by asking him to say “Good morning” to his grandparents, most of the time he will keep quiet or respond with “Good morning 爷爷不要”. And more often than not, we just laugh it off without correcting him on that. That reminds me of Amy Chua's "Tiger Mother" way of bringing up her 2 daughters in a strict fashion. I have not read her book "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" but my cousin who finished reading that book, shared a bit with me about Amy's relentless determination and parenting philosophy, contrary to modern American standard of permissiveness and mediocrity.

Well, I am pretty sure that Win was not brought up in a "Tiger Mother" way, but to certain extend, I was. I remember vividly how my parents used to talk to us from young. They always encourage us to study hard and work hard for better life. They believe that's the best way to prepare us for our future. We learned the concept of "you reap what you sow" before we could even wrote our own names. During our era, there's no such thing as "parents should foster learning is fun", or "stressing on academic results is not healthy for kids". I am sure even until now, some of my mummy friends who are advocates of Western parenting style, eventually still get stressed out by peer pressures from those who managed to raise stereotypically successful children with a more "tiger-like' way.

So, the question is, am I too soft to Renzo? Maybe, but then, nowadays kids are so smart. There was one time Renzo muttered "Don't use your hand, use your spoon!" while feeding himself dinner. That's exactly what we have been reminding him almost everyday. Although he ended up stuffing 60-70% of his meal into his mouth with his hands, we didn't rake him over the coals just because of that. And the fact is, he really knows what is the right thing to do, just that it takes him time to put that into action, at least that's what I choose to believe. There was another time when Renzo was not even 15 months old, when I smacked his little hand and scolded him for biting my finger, he turned around and looked into my eyes, he didn't say a word (well he couldn't say much back then), but his expression made me feel that he's complaining: "You are my mummy, how could you do this to me?". Since then, I've never raised my voice at him again, not even once.

Guess I should stop thinking and talking like an expert, 'cause I am not. I still have no clue what is the best for Renzo despite self-claiming many times that I want to provide the best for him. But for now, I am not going to be a "tiger mummy" and risk myself of raising up a rebellious instead of successful kid, at least not before Renzo could write his own name. haha...

If a picture paints a thousand words...

Renzo was quite cooperative in front of the camera this weekend and allowed us to take some of the videos of him doing funny stuff. Usually, he would stop dead in his tracks once we took out the camera. It has always been something of a desire for both Feli and myself to be able to capture these actions down and show it to him when he grows up to have a little laugh together.

If a picture paints a thousand words, then this post would be about... hmmm, lets do some calculations...

30fps (frames per second) * 2 minutes 46 seconds = 4980 frames
4980 frames * thousand words = 4.98 million words... possibly the longest post ever written on this blog (or any blog for that matter)

Anyway, here are the 3 videos we took over the weekend... njOy~!


This was taken just after Renzo's shower. Every time after his hot shower, he is treated to a bottle of milk, and "Daddy I want milk milk, please" is some manners we taught him...=P


Just after his milk, he decided to powder himself... something he does some of the time, but rarely allowing us to video it (he'd stop once we wipe out the camera)


He was playing on my his iPad2 and launched his favourite "Angry Birds" and linked to the page of "Angry Birds"... and this was what he thought of the evil egg-loving green pigs...

Renzo baby has distinctive preference over Daddy Chan now

After my 2 weeks business trip, it became apparent that Renzo baby developed this distinctive preference over his daddy nowadays.

Incident #1:
Win went for grocery shopping after dinner to replenish milk powder stock for Renzo. In the past, he would just tell Renzo where is he going and when will he be back, well indeed that doesn't concern our boy much, he is surely more interested to know if Win will leave his ipad at home for him to play only. But nowadays Renzo often cries for Daddy, and keeps asking, "Where is daddy? You (I) want daddy, where??!!"

Incident #2:
One of my most important (to Renzo) routine tasks, is to sing bedtime lullabies to Renzo, and since his birth till now. I've been switching between more than 20 English and Chinese songs for this little one. The biggest worry I used to have was, how could Daddy Chan coax baby to sleep when I am away for my trip. But now, I am not worried any more. A few nights ago, while I happily ended 1 round of "ABC" and just about to start on "Row Row Row your boat", I was suddenly stopped by Renzo, he shouted "Mummy sing song, row row row your boat 不要, Daddy sing song, row row row your boat, please!"

Incident #3:
Recently we noticed that Renzo loves to give instructions to us adults on what we should do according to his perference. Such as forcing grandpa to only sit on his own chair instead of on grandma's chair, insisting on eating "potato" from his plate and throwing them out when we correct him that it's "pumpkin" instead. I didn't really expect that unfortunately, finally I became his target. Tonight right before his bedtime, he was playing around and while Daddy Chan finished shower and returned to the room, Renzo was extremely excited. (Needless to say, he was super cranky while Daddy Chan went for his shower). And this time, he quickly lay in his bed and got into his sleeping position, then he started giving out instructions in his captivating tone:
Renzo: "Renzo lie down, Daddy also lie down!"
Mummy: "Where? Which side?"
Renzo (pointing at his right hand side): "Here, this side!"
Daddy: "So can Mummy lie down also?"
Renzo (without hesitation): "Mummy lie down 不要!!"
While I was wondering what am I supposed to do then,
Renzo: "Mummy go walk walk!!" and he then pushed me down from the bed..
Mummy: "Ergh, Mummy go where walk walk then?"
Renzo: "Mummy, open the door, go walk walk!!!!!" (Apparently getting me out of the bed is not good enough, he wanted me to be totally out of his sight!)

I find it rather hilarious although I know I supposed to feel pretty downhearted over all these. But I am very touched to see the efforts Win put in recently to look after our Renzo gets well paid off this way.

Here's a little video of Renzo feeding himself on our recent trip to the airport.