Sophie: 4 and a half
half years! Both of us have grown so much. She's super cute. She's very observant, quirky, creative, imaginative,
smart, talkative, sensitive, helpful, full of drama, full of life,
strong willed, friendly yet shy at times, passionate... etc etc...
She's so smart and she's got so much energy that sometimes we feel
like we can't catch up with her. She's definitely not boring. :) Sometimes she's so full on that our tendency is to clam her down - do
this, don't do that, do that, don't do this etc etc... coz the easy
way of parenting is control but we have learnt to slow down and get to
know her. It's not easy but with God's grace and help, I believe it'll
help her to fully be all that God wants her to be. I still can't believe that she's reading fluently at 4 and she can
read almost anything she picks up. She reads as well as a 10 year old
girl on the base! I didn't even get pass Lesson 20 on Reading Made
Easy. We did focus more on reading than Math but since she's right on track
for reading, I've switched focus to Math. With the help of some
manipulatives (we use vintage buttons - that's all I have and I love
looking at them, so does she. I got them at a flea market for next to
nothing), she's picked up her additions pretty quickly! She's not into
boring so it keeps me on my toes to think of interesting ways to teach
her. She still struggles with writing so we're working on that slowly.
Recently, I created a "card making" station for her. It's equipped
with stamps, stamp pads, cards, envelopes, colour pencils and a piece
of paper with words like "I Love You!, Hello!, How are you?, I miss
you" and she can copy them and write cards to her friends. And she's
really taken to it, she wrote a birthday card to her friend on her
own. Super cute! We've been working on her chores and manners recently. Her current
family chore is arranging the shoes. This is ironic because it's one
chore that my mother never successfully got me to do! I can still hear
my mum's voice - "Put your shoes properly!" (right mum? :)) When she
comes home from dinner, she needs to arrange all our footwear neatly. She's got her other chores too like making her bed, drawing the
curtains, taking the dishes to the sink, putting her laundry into the
basket, tissues into the dustbin, putting the toothbrush and
toothpaste back into the cup etc etc.... little things like that that
are so tempting to just pick up after her if she doesn't do it. But
the training though repetitive WILL in the long run become second
nature. I'm trying to stick to the point that I shouldn't have to do
for her what she can already do herself but oh........ sometimes it's
so hard coz it's just so much faster if I do it! But one thing I've
learnt here is not to "rescue" but to just let her do it. And also
instead of nagging, we've got a chore chart that she ticks off when
she's done it and she loves ticking hahaha... so it works. Right now
we've got no reward for that coz she seems just happy ticking but we
may work into it a reward system. One book that I really recommend for
this is Raising Great Kids by Dr Henry Cloud and John Townsend. In our parenting class, we learn about 4 different personalities of
children - Captain, Teddy Bear, Busy Bee and Clown and how to parent
them according to their personalities (if anyone is keen, I can write
more about this). Very helpful and interesting insight. According to
the description, Sophie is a Captain Clown and her tendency is to rule
the house and she loves being the centre of attention. Can be pretty
demanding most times and it's been such a challenge to teach her to
ask nicely, say her "May I?"s, "Please"s and "Thank You"s. She goes
into auto pilot mode and demands for things. But she's learning and
improving. It's so cute to watch her waiting for adults to finish
their conversations and with her little voice saying "Excuse me,
Auntie Andrea.... excuse me, Auntie Andrea...." and finally I have to
help her get their attention coz she's just so soft. She likes to talk
to some adults and is sometimes quite kapoh (inquisitive) so she wants
to butt into their conversations. Have to teach her to say excuse me.
Super cute. Oh btw, she calls the adults by their first names because
that's how it is here. She goes to the Base Director and calls him,
Ross! Ross!. Yeeks! I'm slowly trying to change that before we return
to Singapore. Can't imagine her calling Kelvin (my bro) by his first
name! Or Pastor Rennis, Yo Rennis! Faint..... I really love having Sophie. She's a very precious gift and just so
delicate in many ways. Pls pray for us that the Lord will grant us
wisdom to carefully train and love this little one.
