Grubbs n Critters

October 7, 2011

14 Months

“She doesn’t have brakes, Ma’am!”

So our Nanny gleefully exclaimed when I came home from work the other day.

Spud has now gotten herself into the habit of racing towards me the moment she saw me at the door, almost crashing herself onto our wooden shoe cabinet by the door.

The Nanny could not have described it any better. Spud just runs! And, each time she runs, before we even know it, she would have zoomed past blindly towards whatever direction she fancies, sped by several pieces of furniture, and barely missing them by a few millimeters!

And each time she does that, my heart skipped several beats, crossing my finger and toes that she would apply her “brakes” in time and not unwittingly banged herself up silly.

Just the other day, Spud decided that she would take her muslin square, put it over her face and sped right for the wooden safety gate. That was pretty intense; and luckily, after hearing Silver Bullet shrieked and I happened to be closer to where she was, I managed to intervene in time or she would have gone right smack onto the gate (with the muslin over her head, covering her entire face)! Funnily enough, we both had been watching her from the different sections of the apartment, and she just had to do that just when I looked away for a few seconds!

I suppose there are many more heart attacks to come as Spud operates without brakes for a while. Her exploration sprees, while I believe is good for her developmental milestones, also do mean that we have to watch her like a hawk. Especially when considering that things just happen at that very moment we turn away from her…

Her nap time has now officially decreased to just one nap a day and, we’d be lucky if she naps for half an hour. Anything longer than that is a bonus. I wish to find some anecdotes as to how she can slow down just a fraction of a notch down, but I don’t think we can ever figure it out with this kid.

But to be fair, between naps and the occasional trouble with food, we have learnt to pick our battles with her or we’d probably be qualified for the mental institution.

I don’t know where this child gets her energy from and she’s got bountiful of it.

Energy in us? Not so much. We are so drained that I think I feel more exhausted over the weekend than having to go to work on a weekday. Our only comfort is knowing that by 6.30 pm, Spud gets so exhausted that she will practically beg us (by whining a lot and standing by the gate to go to her room) to put her to bed.

She is still a joy despite her antics though. These days, she’s been imitating us by holding her toy phone (or our phone), babbling away as she walks around the apartment, and occasionally passing the phone to us. Quite hilarious to watch, actually! When it comes to speech, she’s like our own mini-cavemen…she goes ehk..ekh..aack…aack..and looking at us funny.

I still miss the lazy afternoon naps b.c (before child) days, and so far, I have not been successful to cajole her to take a nap with me while lying next to me on a lazy weekend afternoon. I could barely open my eyes usually, but Spud’s a kid. And she has needs bigger than mine…needs like her parents has to keep her occupied and try to amuse her the entire day.

Ahhh….the joy of parenting. When is she off to college again?

Crazy traffic

Category: Thaism

Did I ever mentioned before that traffic in this country has gotten crazy mad these days?

It has become so insane that we are getting stuck in traffic for hours on end in traffic at random times of the day…and don’t even bother mentioning weekends!

If you think it was bad last time, times that by 5 now! Honestly, I am not sure what it is or why traffic seemed worse that it was before, and I can only speculate that massive amount of rainfalls in the recent months plus some major road works could have been the cause of it all.

But still. It should not be a standstill for hours on end.

Just recently, we all got stuck in the carpark of the hospital on a friday afternoon after sending Spud for her mandatory vaccination. Her appointment took all but maximum 15 minutes all in (from registration to seeing the doctor to payment), but we all were stuck in the carpark for almost an hour in trying to make it out of the parking area! It was royally insane.

For a good hour almost, NOTHING was moving. And if we did move, it was probably by a meter or so. By the time we made it out of the carpark, Spud was super cranky. And by the time we got home, almost 2 hours have passed, and it was almost past Spud’s bedtime!

On any other days, we should be able to get home within 10 minutes from the hospital. Like I said, it was insane.

Here are a few snapshots of when NOTHING was moving, and we have not even made it out of the carpark yet. And as you can see, everything was in major gridlock, and no one was giving any way to anyone!