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| Said she whilst posing, "Take a picture of me." |
Our lil' girl is growing up day by day, her knowledge, awareness and linguistic skills increasing every minute. At times, she corrects our English pronunciation ("It's not 'Sin-GA-pore', should be 'Singa-pore'); other times she teases us ("Huh, why can't you find the item? Don't you have eyes?"); most times she pesters us to play with her ("Why is it I am playing by myself?").
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| Cheeky lil imp |
One night, we were carrying out our nightly routine of reading before turning in. Yx was lying on the bed on her stomach when suddenly, she kicked one of the pillows hard. It fell off the bed and in the process tipped over a cup of water on the bedside table.
Not wanting to bestow blame onto her knowing that she didn't mean for the accident to happen, I reacted mildly, "Ahh, see what's happened?" Yx crept over to the edge of the bed and leaned out for a better view. I went to grab a cloth. Whilst I mopped up the water from the bedroom floor, I explained to Yx in a gentle, non-condescending tone, what consequence her action has caused.
Peering down at the spilled water, Yx said, "Papa?"
Me: "Yes?"
Yx: "Sorry."
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I felt super surprised by and happy with her apology. Surprised because she actually bore the consciousness and awareness of the event; and happy because she was really sincere and apologetic about it. And I was surprised and happy because I succeeded in helping her realise the incident's cause-and-effect without having to scream or yell at her; neither did I use an authoritative, didactic tone which would have led to her feeling bad about herself. Instead, an explanation in a patient and gentle tone, without unnecessary injection of sigh ("haiyoh!") or alarm ("wah lau!"), worked excellently.
Me, returning an assuring smile: "It's alright, we'll learn from this."
And Yx acknowledged, "Okay."
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| Finally! Pretzzzzzzzel! |
