When Ryan was just a baby, I would dream of the day that he calls me mummy. When he did first call me, it was Mama. I was already on cloud nine that my baby started calling me. But then again, I preferred to be called mummy and over time, with some adjustment on his part, I eventually was called the sweetest thing in the world – mummy.

Now that Ryan is 2 years old and is a great conversationalist (at least to me!), he knows many more words and I’m now known to him as mummy, mum, mother. He likes to tease me sometimes with mum and usually wakes me up with mother. I have no idea why.

But lately he’s given me a new term of endearment. To me, it will be the best endearment I’ve ever gotten in my life. Maybe it’s because of how he says it, the tone that he calls me by.

He calls me his Princess! And he says it all so gently and lovingly that no matter what he did that made me angry with him, it all goes away the second he looks at me and says “Princess…”

How can my heart not melt? This is something that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life as a mother.

To read more parenting related articles, click here: Life As A Mummy

The sweetest endearment in my lifetime…

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I’ve never smoked in my life and happy with that. I’m also glad that we don’t hang around people who do. I personally feel that being a second hand smoker causes us more harm than the person who smokes directly. Reason being we’re inhaling as second hand smokers whilst the person who smokes exhales.

I take all precaution to keep Ryan away from smokers. If we do pass by some places where there are people smoking, we would quickly make our way away from there. We definitely would not subject ourselves to places that are smokers friendly, that’s for sure.

We are extremely aware of being around smokers and therefore avoid them at all cost. Some parents are more tolerant and are alright when seated near to smokers at restaurants and they don’t really mind. Perhaps they don’t realise that the second hand smoke is getting to them and their children.

Not only do we avoid smokers in public places, I also personally do not do smokers any favours. In the past when I used to travel quite a bit, friends would ask if I can help to buy them discount cigars in certain countries or to buy them duty free cigarettes at the airports. I’ve always disappointed them with a NO answer. I don’t advocate them to smoke so I don’t want to help them by providing the health hazards.

How strong a stance do you take on when it comes to smoking? Are you tolerant and think that a little second hand smoke is not too bad or are you quite paranoid like me?

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Have you ever wondered why the flight attendants give instructions for you to put on your safety vests and oxygen masks before you put them on for your children? The logic is that once you are taken care of, you will then be better able to take care of your dependents.

While I find this to be quite true, I sometimes wonder, when in a state of panic and where time is of the essence, what is your natural instinct like? Wouldn’t you think first of the safety of your children and do things to help them first?

I was listening to some motivational speakers talk about living life the smarter way, taking proper care of yourself and your family and he too repeated this. We should take good care of ourselves before we’re able to take care of the ones in our care. Do we all realise that? Not everyone, I think.

I used to think that my flesh and blood is more important than me, therefore taking care of Ryan becomes my first priority. But now I’ve learned to start with myself first.

So if you have not already realised this as a parent, give this some thought and start to take better care of yourself in terms of being in excellent health so that you are always fit and ready to do whatever necessarily to protect your family.

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All kids at one point or another are sure to be somewhat attracted to kiddie rides of all kinds. Ryan loves them too but fortunately for us, he doesn’t enjoy the ride when we insert coins into them. He would instruct us NOT to put in coins, he just wants to sit in it and turn the steering wheels and press on those brightly lit buttons in the kiddie rides.

Whilst that saves us money, we somehow can’t help but think that parents who walk past us and see us not inserting any coins to let Ryan enjoy his ride must think that we are so stingy! I guess we just have to be thick faced and be okay with that perception of us!

Anyway, I’m writing this post to serve a reminder to parents. Something untoward happened to Ryan while he was on one of these kiddie rides in 1 Utama’s top floor at the new wing last night.

As usual we sat him into his chosen kiddie ride and he was turning the steering wheel and pressing the buttons…it was also our fault for not watching him closely and assumed that everything was alright. There was one particular button on that ride where the cap of the button had come off, so it was exposing the little bulb sitting inside it.

Ryan touched it and he immediately told us that his finger was very painful. He got burned by that heated bulb on the tip of his index finger! The bulb was so hot that his finger immediately developed quite a big blister. And his finger was quite red in colour for a long time. It all happened so quickly, we didn’t even see his little finger touch it. I felt awful as a mum for being so careless and letting him get hurt like that.

When we led him away from those rides, we tried to distract him of the pain and his fears of those rides. It was so painful for us to watch him in shock and pain. We tried to cheer him up by distracting him with the colourful cartoon game showing on the LCD TV at the Parkson toy department and shoving him in the direction of toys we think he’d like. He was alright all the time, not a single tear at all, but he kept his little blistered finger pointing out all the time, right until we got into the car to go home! My poor little boy.

Not only did he physically get hurt from this incident, he’s also quite skeptical to get onto a kiddie ride now. Maybe the memory of the painful  burn is still very fresh in his memory and that’s why he doesn’t want to get on them now, but I really hope this episode does not make him stay away from these rides. He’s still a kid after all and deserves to enjoy himself on them.

So parents, when you put your children into these rides, watch out for those buttons and make sure your kids don’t get burnt. It’s not fair that they get scared and therefore stay away from things they like just because they got hurt by some faulty machine. And from our carelessness, too. Also, being burnt may not have been the worst that could have happen. Who knows whether there’s any passing current in those  electrical parts too. I shudder to think of the worst case scenario…

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Parents, watch your children on kiddie rides

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Parents, listen up! Do you know how to deal with creepy-crawlies when they creep up on your children? Have you heard the story about the woman who went to a beach for a sun tan and then ended up with insect crawling into her ear and laying eggs inside, causing her massive headaches?

I don’t know how authentic that story is but it was enough to scare me. What more now that I have a child, I worry even more that something unfortunate like this could ever happen to my son. If ever something gets into your child’s ears, you might want to learn how to deal with it. I won’t repeat the write up here, you can read all about it here on this post on Cherish Wellness where I contribute articles as well.

Just a reminder, never take a child’s complaints likely. And if something is continuously bothering him or her, it’s cue that you need to do something and not let the situation get well by itself. It never really works that way!

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