Very soon, my baby will be 18 months old!!! She is still barely 8 kilos (YES!!! Can you believe it???), the same size as most babies younger than her or even lighter!!! See? The baby beside her is 3 months old……

Today, she has had her poo AGAIN (she really is like her Dad, so full of shit) and is in an eating mood. She’s had for breakfast, scrambled eggs, cheddar cheese and toast. And chocolate milk twice (one Pediasure and one Dutch Lady box).

This morning, whilst I was watching TV during breakfast, she was reading her book beside me and suddenly pointed to her R book and whilst she was at the page of the robot, she tapped the robot and kept saying wobot-wobot-wobot. I was so proud of her. I would have expected her to know the usual words like those of fruit and animals but she knew the robot! Of course, every little achievement she makes is cause for joy for she is such a late bloomer. Her sister at the same age was already stringing very comprehensive sentences!

Another interesting I observed was that T2 is a lot more patient than T1. She likes figuring things out whilst her sister is more lazy and will just ask for help. Knowing my phone charger connects to my Blackberry, T2 was trying to figure out how to click the wire to the phone this morning. It was fascinating watching her look so deeply into the Blackberry, twisting it around, turning it upside down, wondering which hole to poke the wire into. And when she finally found the right hole, the wire still wouldn’t go in so she would LOOOOOOOOK closely again and wonder why. Then she’d try again. And again and again. She has so much patience! In the end, she didn’t figure out that she only had to turn the wire around but to be fair, we had to leave the room because Mommy was impatient already. If it had been T1, she’d try once and if she failed, “Mom!!!” You see why I’m stressed? Every damn little thing, “MOM!!!”

And if you think I haven’t reprimanded her for calling me to do every single thing, think again because I have and I don’t even do things for her these days. Yet, the bugger tries her luck every single time and the wail of MOM in itself is a nightmare chant I have to live with.

Back to my baby T2 – she can now run and climb and tries to copy the words we say. She likes playing pretend games (like she’s going shopping with her bag and her car) and peekaboo games with the blanket and curtains. She likes pushing trolleys and copying her sister play like running around with her binoculars looking at the monkeys outside our windows. She likes playing cars and trains, not so much with dolls yet. She’s not interested in painting at all. At 14 months old, her sister was already doing a lot of hand painting but T2, not interested at all. She’s also not that into TV but absolutely LOVES books. We have to read her the same books over and over and over and over, oh my goodness. It’s so boring!!! She obviously has her favourites. I keep encouraging her to watch TV (so it doesn’t involve me) but she keeps insisting I read her books. Oh, you can’t win. *hands up in surrender*

She knows the names of a lot of things and her body parts quite well. But speaking it is another matter altogether. She doesn’t love drawing as much as her sister and will only scribble zig zag lines for short periods. I remember T1 spending long periods doodling little roses. They were the first things she ever drew, lots and lots of repetition of roses of every size. She is still an artist till today.

She can entertain herself (only during the mornings) and feed herself and knows where to look for food. She will only eat what she wants to eat and nothing if she doesn’t want it. If you force her, she’d go on a hunger strike altogether. Very head strong and powerful, this one. She loves cheese but not yogurt. She prefers breast milk to Pediasure. She loves bread and would rather eat the same food as all of us than have her own. Generally, she is just plain moody when it comes to food. She loves dessert, of course, thanks to my Mother. And my mother would tell you otherwise, that it was MY fault since I love desserts. She has also started drinking from a cup and can handle a real adult straw.

She looks ready for toilet training for most time she pees or poos, she will tell me by coming up to me and patting her diaper. Mommy’s not ready though. T1 was toilet trained at 26 months and night toilet trained by 3.5 years old. It all happened very naturally. I’ll do the same with T2, let her take the lead.

She is good with instructions and is my little helper whenever I need things brought to me at my convenience, like my phone, my inhaler, my pillow, my bag, whatever……as long as it is in another room and I cannot get up to get it, my faithful T2, will be ever so proud to toddle along to get things for her Mama. Such loyalty. Where as the big one will moan and groan but will still do it.

She is also pretty good with listening to Mama when Mama says don’t touch the oven, she won’t. Lots of reminders though as the next day, she’d be back to trying her luck with opening the kitchen drawers again. She obviously has a mind of her own and is very good at decision making. I can ask her if she’d like to have her bath now and she would shake her head. Later, I’d ask her again, and she’d nod, obviously ready for bath. She was too busy earlier. Little things like that.

She has just started allowing us to brush her teeth. I think she has about 12 teeth including molars which is exactly how many teeth she is supposed to have at this age even though she started teething real late.

She is extremely loving with everyone in the family except when she is in a bad mood. When she has been woken up from sleep and if her sister tries to cuddle her, she’d strike out like a scorpion! Poor T1…..yet she loves her baby sister so much still.

She sleeps very little (hence the lack of growth!) and is completely dependent on me for sleep. She needs to know that someone is in the room when she sleeps or she won’t be sleeping. I don’t need to nurse her to sleep but I need to be in the room and preferably (to her that is) she’d like to hold my hand. What is it with my girls and my hand??!?!!??!?!! I’ve tried making her hold her teddy bears but she just throws them out of the cot and if I reinforce the concept, she starts getting really angry!

There. I’ve done it. A little update on my baby.

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Who is Mamapumpkin?
Mamapumpkin spent 7 years in London committing crimes to gain her Bartlett degree in Architecture. She then spent 7 years as a Stay At Home Mom raising her children as documented in this blog of over 15 years thereafter returning to the Corporate World stronger than ever as the Country Director of a British Multinational. She sets out to prove to all, that you can have anything and everything that you want; if you have that fire of desire burning within and the drive to work hard. Even better with much love.

Mamapumpkin has not only grown corporate businesses successfully in the past but has grown not one but TWO network marketing businesses in the notorious MLM (Multi-Level Marketing) industry, achieving success in under 2 years. She believes in the MLM business model but realises the DRASTIC PITFALLS and great stigma attached to it, understanding EXACTLY WHY the majority would shy away (or RUN for their lives) from ANY MLM business. But open your eyes and take time to understand it intellectually, remove your hang-ups, confirm your research, and you may just want to seize an opportunity. She did. And no, she never went about chasing people for sales. She had a sophisticated system work for her through technology and a smartphone.

She now impacts lives authentically with proven strategies amassed through the last decade of her own transformation offering online coaching programmes and always supports the underprivileged. She believes that we can all have a life of our own desires to enable real contribution into the world. But first, one needs to understand what this all means.

A beautiful life without limits.

If you wish to learn some tools to propel your life forward guaranteed, be brave enough to make contact as her life's purpose is to build people. She operates through a discovery call after which she will commit to helping you. Or not.

Most lose out on an opportunity because they are afraid they would be sold to, conned or whatever fear resides in their brain without even trying. And that's on them.

Mamapumpkin is a living testimony that women really can have a lot. Being financially and time free has enabled her to travel the world anytime, anywhere, doing anything, and she spends most of her days with her children, having fun, and supporting others wherever she can. Also having fun.